Mary Knox-Johnson - Alphabet Jambalaya: An Alliterative Alphabet Book for the Fun at Heart

Copyright 2013 by Mary Knox-Johnson. 119282-KNOX ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4836-7278-6 Hardcover 978-1-4836-7279-3 EBook 978-1-4836-7280-9 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. date: 02/12/2014 Xlibris LLC 1-888-795-4274 www.Xlibris.com Dedicated to the women who have profoundly influenced my life including: LaVerna Knox, my mother; Sister Grace Marie (aka Sister Geraldine Steinbach) who taught me how to read; Clare Williams, my mentor, who allowed me to share her classroom as a student teacher; and Sharon Benzel, a fellow English teacher, with whom I commiserated much about education. date: 02/12/2014 Xlibris LLC 1-888-795-4274 www.Xlibris.com Dedicated to the women who have profoundly influenced my life including: LaVerna Knox, my mother; Sister Grace Marie (aka Sister Geraldine Steinbach) who taught me how to read; Clare Williams, my mentor, who allowed me to share her classroom as a student teacher; and Sharon Benzel, a fellow English teacher, with whom I commiserated much about education.

Acknowledgments A special thank you to Clare Williams, my mentor, who gave a shy young student teacher a glimpse into the world of education. Her guidance and perseverance launched this author into a career that would last over forty years. I must also thank Sharon Benzel, a kindred spirit, who reacquainted me with the world of visual art and, as a former English teacher herself, helped edit my work. Thank-you also to Sybil Hopkins, another compatriot in the English classroom, who helped lift my spirit often. Thank-you to my mom, LaVerna, who proved to me that knowledge and ability arent always learned in school. She taught me how to dream and rise above the hardships of life.

She had the ability to color the world as she saw it, not as it was, and she passed this ability on to me. Thank-you to my dad, Frank, who instilled in me a love for language and the acquisition of knowledge. He proved to me that power exists in knowledge. Thank-you to Sister Grace Marie, aka Sister Geraldine Steinbach, who taught me how to read. I will be eternally grateful for her patience and compassion. Thank-you to my illustrator, Marion Caroline Reil, who once again found the inner spirit to create such fun portraits to compliment my work.

And finally, thank you to my husband, Dwayne, who has stood by me through thirty-three years of marriage and still counting. A kinder, gentler man would be hard to find. He has the exterior of a realist but the soul of a romantic. I thank the day he came riding into my life on his old bay mare. Why I wrote this book. As an English teacher, I often noticed the difficulty with which my students approached the writing process.

No matter how often they wrote and I critiqued, the nuances of the English language eluded them. Finally, out of sheer desperation, I developed a list of writing dos and donts, one of which was the use of alliteration. The concept behind the list was to add a higher level of sophistication to their writing style, not to flower-it-up, as some would say, but to energize it! A lways allow ample avenues around ambling animals. B usy beaver build beautiful barricades. Crafty crocodiles create curiously constructed caricatures. E xercising elephants exhibit extraordinary energy F ables frequently feature flamboyant felines. G alloping giraffes generate giant guffaws. H armonizing horses harangue humming hyenas. I ridescent indigenous iguanas inhabit isolated islands. J abbering jaguars joyfully juggle jack-o-lanterns. K ayaking kangaroos kid khaki karate kin. L emmings lampoon lazy leprechauns. M anatees maneuver marshy mazes. N annies never negotiate naptime. O ctopus often observe other organisms. P iccolo playing penguins practice passionately. Q uacking quail quietly quarreled. R abbits regret racing recklessly. S tampeding stallions seldom see stop signs. T adpoles tango to tambourines U nicorns unite. V aliant Vikings valued voyages vigorously. W arm-blooded walruses whispered wishes wistfully.