The Most Magnificent Maker's A to Z - Ashley Spires - ★★★★.½

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Ashley Spires

SERIES: Most Magnificent Thing, #3

GENRE: Children's Picture Book.

PUBLICATION DATE: September 5, 2023.

RATING: 4.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: The third picture book of the ‘Most Magnificent’ series. Unlike the earlier two, this one has no plot but is a guide book aimed at creative thinkers. Quite interesting and imaginative with much helpful advice, but will have limited appeal compared to the rest of the series.

Though the third book of the Most Magnificent series, this book stands apart in its approach. This first two books had a clear plot, where a little girl struggled with making her invention and thinking of an idea respectively. This third book is more of a nonfiction, with the title indicating exactly what the book contains: a A-Z guide for little makers.

From Brainstorming to Fixing to Rethinking and a lot more, every single letter of the English alphabet gets a page or two of dedicated focus. The content doesn’t stop just at saying things like ‘L is for Learn’ but elucidates on this with further sentences and multiple illustrated examples. The letter-wise tags don’t just have action words but also motivational phrases such as ‘Keep going’. Every bit of advice in these pages is pragmatic and wise.

The illustrations, again sketched by the author, are outstanding in this edition. Each main letter in the A-Z heading is made up of tools. Most pages have multiple little drawings instead of one big sketch, and each is filled with creativity and even some hidden Easter eggs. The girl’s assistant, her little pet pug, is especially funny in this book. The neighbour’s cat from the second book gets an expanded role and pops up regularly in the background graphics.

While the words and the advice have tremendous values for little makers everywhere, the advice-based nonfiction content might not appeal to all little readers. But I hope parents and teachers encourage them to give this book a try, because it is the most practical and helpful of the three I have read so far in this series.

Definitely recommended. This little book, aiming at young ones aged 4-8 years, would be much helpful at homes as well as in classrooms. The book is a standalone and the entire series can be read in any order.

My thanks to Kids Can Press for providing the DRC of “The Most Magnificent Maker's A to Z” via Edelweiss+. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.