The Ultimate Alphabet

by Mike Wilks

COOL ALPHABET BOOK! GREAT PICTURES!

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Childrens, Reference, Puzzles, Games

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Mike Wilks (British, b. 1947) began his artistic career at age thirteen when he won a scholarship to art school. He ran a successful graphic design business for five years before he sold it and began writing and illustrating books in 1975. He rocketed to fame following publication of The Ultimate Alphabet in 1986; the puzzle book sold 750,000 copies worldwide. After eight illustrated books, he established himself as a novelist with The Mirrorscape Trilogy, a fantasy adventure series.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and many private collections have acquired Wilks’s drawings and paintings. Wilks lives in London.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long ago, a friend and I were obsessed with this game called Scrutineyes. It was pretty simple. Study a picture of things that all begin with a single letter of the alphabet. List as many as you can before the timer runs out. Trade pictures. Then cross out your common answers, and whoever has the most left wins. I mean, we played this thing all the time. Either one of us could have beaten an inexperienced player without even looking at the pictures (and I bet I still could, for the letter P).
Anyway, I never knew until recently that the pictures for the game were taken from this book.
I cannot adequately communicate the excitement I felt when I made the discovery, because the game doesn't have the pictures for every letter. It's easy to see why some were left out (I mean... Q)and a few are a bit yuck. But still. Major, major excitement. I also love how the artist encourages finding creative answers in his pictures. We did that all the time, and I always secretly thought we were cheating.
I can't wait to share this with my friend. Scrutinizing these weird, wonderful, ridiculous, occasionally creepy works of art isn't gonna get old anytime soon.

[Elizabeth A · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun book to have around when you've got a group of people gathered. It is puzzle book of sorts; a Where's Waldo for an older crowd.

What is it exactly? It is a fun alphabet book, but nothing like the ones we used as kids. In this one the author/artist illustrates each letter of the alphabet with paintings of hundreds of objects that all begin with that particular letter, and the objective is to see how close you can come to finding/naming all the objects painted. This would be a fun book for both older teens and adults, especially if there is a competitive streak in the group.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've become obsessed with this book since picking it up at a thrift store (it's not in print anymore, which is a pity.) Each letter of the alphabet gets a one-page spread by the artist featuring as many words beginning with that letter as he is able to cram in, and the game begins when the reader examines the picture to find them. The oil paintings are lush and rich with detail, and of necessity rather bizarre (like a desert scene featuring dinosaurs, diagrams, dogs, and a delerious demigod for the letter D.) It's a lot of fun, especially if you keep a running list of your finds. I have since found out there are iphone app and computer game versions of the book also.

The book is not as innocent and child-friendly as the Waldo series. There are naked bodies, part of the classical influences of the artist, and in one picture, for C, I found a condom. For older kids it might be OK.

[Ruan Peat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given this book as a child and adored it, my dad and I spent hours pouring over each and every page! sometimes days on one letter, recently I was tasked with finding a book for an invalid, and chose this one to recommend as I still have and enjoy the original now with my own kids and I am still finding things I never noticed the first times through.
Fab book to either dip in and out or just devote time to, but you must have the lists with it to help you find things. A good dictionary and some encyclopedias would also help, but with phones on the internet you can cut out the big heavy books and just enjoy.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really fun book; a set of 26 paintings, each representing a letter of the alphabet. Each page also told you how many objects starting with that letter were present in the painting. An associated word-list gave you a much larger number of possible words and the goal was to figure out which words were represented and which ones were not. Entertaining and educational.

[Michelle Jenner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh the hours I've spent lost in these pictures, feverishly trying to spot things I haven't noted down before! Beautifully done!
Just thinking about it is making me want to dive into it once more... uh oh... see you in a few hours...

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book can be considered the intelligent person’s equivalent of the “I Spy” series of books. The artist/author has created a series of 26 very intricate paintings, one for each letter of the English alphabet. Each image contains a large number of objects that begin with the designated letter for that image.
Like all such images, some of the objects are easy to discern while others are very hard. Particularly challenging are some of the words that reference the objects. For example, the image for the letter “s” is on the back cover and some of the words ae “sabretache, selachian, siamang, spinode spokeshave, salomonica, and strig.” Of these seven words, four fail the spell checker test.
If you want a very hard challenge in identifying objects from an image where they are concentrated, this is the book for you.

[Aileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember when this book was originally published, one of the Sunday newspapers published individual pictures over a number of weeks, with an invitation to identify all the items for that initial. My family were hooked!

I took a copy plus workbook on a variety of solo holidays, especially if traveling around - it's the perfect companion for filling in time, trying to work out the names of things, and the different ways to depict a particular letter.

This book is one of the most amazing publications ever - I still have it (with a set of blank workbook pages), to dip into every so often. I also have one of the jigsaws, and keep meaning to track down others.

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The amount of work that must of gone into this book's artwork is insane. Not a huge fan of the art style itself, but this is a book you can spend hours over trying to spot all of the different words.

[KaitandMaddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty cool book, though we didn’t make any attempt to actually find all of the items for each letter.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

So over the summer I finally tracked down Mike Wilks' books. I was hoping for some lost classics, and while his technical ability as a sort of pop-surrealist painter is basically superhuman, his tendency to fill his books with long-winded text explaining his own genius, inspiration and process pretty much kills the mood. It's sort of like reading a 32-page textbook.

Also weird is the fact that he painted his own face into EVERY painting for EVERY letter. The dude is basically a Dahmer lookalike, so if you want a skinny-faced guy with a creepy 80's glasses staring at you on every page (sometimes disembodied, sometimes atop a woman's torso), this is your book.

So anyway -- mad skills represent, but these books are still pretty flawed.

[angrykitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

i don't have a category for this book, but it's really amazing. what it is, is it's a book of paintings that each contain like hundreds of things that start with each letter of the alphbet. i'd say it's a kids book, but there is a surprising amount of nudity, so i don't know how kid friendly it is. plus, even though it's an alphbet book, it not like any other i've seen. i have the version with the workbook, so you know what to look for in each picture, but the problem is, i don't know what half the things are on the list (some are scientific names and some are just things i've never heard of before). really, it's an amazingly different book.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one I think my mom got me as an annual Christmas present (we always got at least one really cool book). This one is like an artistic, intellectual version of Where's Waldo. Seriously even if I were to do it now, I probably wouldn't find half of the words on any given page. There is a workbook/list of all the objects that are contained in each page/painting, but I think you'd have to have at least a dictionary around to figure out what a lot of them are. For creative, brainy, artistic, detective types, this is fun. Nerds unite!

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just pictures - but amazing pictures! My uncle gave us this book when I was little and I remember spending HOURS paging through it-- Each page is one letter of the alphabet and there's very detailed, bizarre, busy paintings with tons of objects in each one. Every object in the paintings begin with the letter of that page. The artist also painted himself into each picture. Great for kids AND adults!

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic alphabet book created by artist Mike Wilks. Each letter is illustrated by one of his paintings containing hundreds of objects beginning with the letter. It's a challenge, even for adults.

[Becca Jasman]

Publication Date: 1997

Genre: ABC book

Awards won:

Themes: alphabet

Annotation: This alphabet has rich illustrations that have many items that begin with the letter on the page.

Ways to use the book with children: sound hunts through the book

[Katy W · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this when I was about 14 and a friend and I would lean over it, competing to see who'd find the most objects beginning with each letter. It's not aimed at young children (for a younger age group try "Kipper's A to Z").

[Amy Lahr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book collection from Goodreads. I thought I would give it to a mom with a toddler...It's a bit too advanced for someone that young... and I kind of want to keep it for myself now. My 14 thinks it's pretty awesome!

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great art. A book that can absorb you for years.

[Babs · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fabulous book. I still have my original copy from my childhood, which still holds unending fascination!