C is for cat and E is for elephant.
Every young child in the English-speaking world knows these two basic facts, thanks to the rhymes and illustrations of children’s alphabet books.
However, it turns out, according to author Alfred Labette, that these books have not been entirely forthcoming with the younger generations since their inception.
Labette shared a little-known secret that nearly every alphabet book published since the height of the Roman Empire has skipped past the under-appreciated Elemeno.
“People assume X is the letter that gives us all the trouble,” Labette explains. “But it’s really the elusive Elemeno that makes things difficult. And no wonder it’s forgotten with how quickly we rush through that part of the song.” Alfred, or Alf to his friends, says he has approached the problem from multiple angles, including using animal names from other languages and even mythical creatures. “I’ve got some ideas brewing that are lightyears beyond any other of those sophomoric authors,” Labette declares with pride in his eyes.
A tortured soul to say the least, Labette wakes up every morning, stares at a blank piece of paper for three hours, and then pours through line after line of text on the Internet, looking for inspiration until the caffeine and vitamin B finally wear off. His deadline is fast approaching with just under three weeks to find the answer.
Still, Labette is confident he will have the first true alphabet animal book assembled and published, complete from aardvark to zorgon.