Before I was a professional TV critic or a published author, I was a thoroughly amateur unpublished author, writing poems and short stories and collecting them in term-paper-type binders. The concept for Animaletters emerged from this period, and the poems were completed 40 years ago. A talented artist friend, Melinda Copper, eventually provided illustrations, and both the drawings and poems in Animaletters have since been road-tested successfully on generations of children - in my family, anyway. Now, finally, they see print for real. I hope you enjoy them.

The A to Z poems and illustrations in Animaletters are meant to amuse the adults reading to their children as well as the children being read to, or reading on their own. And though it's an "alphabet book," it's got the kind of wordplay that should, and seems to, appeal greatly to 10-to-12 year-olds -- because that's pretty much the resting age of my sense of humor anyway. Try the few poems in the "preview pages" section, and on the back cover. They'll pretty much let you know what you're in for...

David Bianculli is TV critic for "Fresh Air with Terry Gross" and a professor of Television Studies at Rowan University. This is his first published children's book.