Like tangrams that fit together to form a shape, the 10die-cut foam pieces in Sara Midda's innovative new "ABC" kit can beused to build all the letters of the alphabet, uppercase andlowercase. And oh, what fun! On each page of the accompanying book,little-Sara-Midda-people show kids how: they haul and heave andlift and nudge pieces into place dragging the crossbar over tocomplete the letter H, climbing up ladders to land the dot on topof the lowercase letter i. Learning has never been so much fun. Thesubject is comfortably familiar - A is for Apple and F is forFlower - but Sara Midda's full-colour drawings have such whimsy andsurprise, and the foam pieces are such an original concept, thatthe alphabet feels brand new again.

Sara Midda is an artist and author. Her previous books include theinternational best sellers In and Out of the Garden andSara Midda's South of France. She has exhibited her work inLondon galleries, and her designs are used in a full line oflifestyle products in Japan. She lives outside London and in theSouth of France.