City Alphabet Books:Required Reading for the Urban Diaper Set

3/2/07 - By Anna Fader

The urban blogging parents at Sweet Juniper have upped the ante on urban alphabet books. (via apartmenttherapy) Avoiding the trite apples and boa constrictors, they didn't just set the alphabet in the city, but used urban graffiti of hipster parent appropriate images. Look for H is for Homeless, I is for Icarus, and J is for Jew.They just did this for themselves, but due to popular demand, have made copies available for purchase via lulu, the self-publishing site. Inspired, Mommy Poppins sought out the other great Urban Alphabet Books:

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The classic Alphabet City by Stephen T. Johnson offers photo-realistic still-lifes depicting "found" letters in the urban landscape. In Alphabet City:Out in the Streets Michael De Feo created beautiful, graphic posters of the alphabet and pasted them on city streets, then photographed them. ABC NYC is an alphabet of the things NYC kids really need to know: A is for Atlas, B is for Bagel, C is for Chrysler Building. Museum ABC by The Metropolitan Museum of Art isn't the most interesting ABC book - A is for Apple and all that - but it is a nice introduction to the great works of art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and you can take the book with you to the Museum and use it to hunt down the paintings in the book for a fun museum experience. For all those Hipster, Urbanbaby parents and kids - The Absolutely Awful Alphabet by Mordicai Gerstein. Where C is for Cantankerous and F is for Ferocious, it's sure to delight naughty urban children and parents alike. And one for the grown-ups - Alphabet City by Geoffrey Biddle. Biddle photographed life in the Puerto Rican Lower East Side in the 70s and 80s and through interviews with locals, records what life was like there. A wonderful snapshot and a striking reminder of how much NYC has changed in such a short time.

About the Author

Anna Fader

Founder of Mommy Poppins

A fourth-generation Brooklynite, Anna started Mommy Poppins in 2007 to help families find the best things to do with kids in NYC, with a particular emphasis on sharing activities that are free, affordable, and enriching. The site, used by millions of families, has grown to become the ultimate resource for parents in the major US cities, plus travel guides for 100s of destinations.

Anna is a believer in the magic of summer camps, traveling with kids, and that you can raise kids on a budget and still have a rich life full of amazing memories. Anna's first Mommy Poppins book, The Young Traveler's Journal and Activity Book, published in 2025 and co-written with her daughter, Amelia Eigerman, brings that ethos to life, in addition to this website.