Abstract

For generations, alphabet books have been widely used by parents, librarians and teachers as early literacy tools for young children. Through images, word play and the interactions between word and image, alphabet books have the effect of introducing preliterate young children to the names, images, symbols and concepts regarding animals, what Matthew Calarco has called ‘symbolic mechanisms’ of animals—names, images, concepts, cultural associations of animals—yet they can also be deconstructive of those same mechanisms. Derrida's insights into the contradictory logic of the supplement and parergon as well as the ‘destabilising synergies of word and image’ offer deconstructive readings of alphabet books for adult and child readers. Recognising what Derrida calls the ‘childlike’ in texts such as alphabet books creates unique polymorphous spaces for the further interrogation of notions of animals.