A new Toronto-themed alphabet book celebrated its official launch in style with a three-hour event this past Saturday at the Ontario Science Centre.
ABC of Toronto, the work of author-illustrator Per-Henrik Gürth and published by Kids Can Press, celebrates Toronto by linking every letter of the alphabet to a Toronto landmark. So, for example, A for is AGO, B is for Beach[es], Y is for Yonge Street, and so on, all the way until Z for Zoo. Each letter and landmark get their own page, complete with a Gurth illustration of happy anthropomorphized animal enjoying the site.
This Saturday's book launch, held in the Science Centre's Great Hall, featured a reading by Gürth, a book signing, and a morning of activities for children and their parents.
"The drawing of the "O for Ontario Science Centre" happened to be a neat little doodle of animals enjoying the electricity demonstration," says Kira Webb, KidSpark coordinator at the Science Centre. "So we put on a special demonstration for the launch…we have a portable electric static generator that we brought up to the Great Hall and we did a kind of on-the-road electricity demonstration for visitors."
And, because the book featured animals, the Science Centre also brought attendees a collection of animal pelts of common Toronto animals.
"We had pelts of deers, racoons, coyotes, beaver, rabbits, river otters, and more" says Webb. " It started a conversation among visitors about all the animals they've seen this summer."
The activities were capped off, of course, by an author reading of the book itself.
"It was very well attended and the kids were fascinated. A lot of families that came had no idea that this event was going on," says Webb. "They just came to the Science Centre and were surprised and excited that this event was happening."
Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Kira Webb, KidSpark Coordinator, Ontario Science Center