These Guys Released The Worst Alphabet Book Ever And The Words Are Nearly Impossible To Pronounce

In an interview with Bored Panda, Chris said that the idea came when the duo saw a kid playing with alphabet cards at a friend’s house. “We both got a laugh out of the card for “Q” which read: “Q is for Quinoa.” That was so entertaining to us because, well, what little kid knows or cares about quinoa? And also, isn’t that a terrible “Q” word, considering that it isn’t even phonetic?” It was at that moment that the friends decided to create a book full of these types of words.

Raj said that they collected words in a Google document for a few months and after a while, they realized that the words a “fantastic universe full of gnomes, czars, and tsunamis”. They picked the words that they felt were the most engaging to young readers, like “pterodactyl” and “knight”. “Other letters were much trickier, with few if any appropriate words to choose from. For those, we had to put some significant time and effort into creating clever workarounds that still matched the overall spirit of the book.”

The book took almost three years to complete and neither of the two realized how long it would take. To create the wonderful illustrations, they hired illustrator Maria Beddia: “I can’t think of anyone else who could’ve so beautifully interpreted our crazy requests, like having ‘a french leopard and a tiny witch sitting in a creepy Victorian home playing the Ouija board,” says Raj.

“We tend to underestimate our children when we present an overly simplified version of the world in teaching certain subjects. It can be enormously frustrating, for example, to have a particular set of spelling rules drilled into one’s head, only to discover later that “I before E” is a giant conspiracy,” says Chris. While he says that the basics are important, he thinks that kids should be trusted to learn the more difficult words. “Also, kids should reach for our book because of the purple turban-wearing pteranodon with a skin condition,” adds the author.

Check out the hilarious alphabet book in the gallery below!

More info: Amazon | h/t