Claude Closky, “A is for Art / A is for Arrow”

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RRose Editions, 2026

This children’s alphabet book by Claude Closky unfolds as a reversible object that can be read from both ends. Each direction comprises 26 pages, forming two complete alphabets that meet at the center. The same black-and-white drawings appear in both readings, but their meaning shifts with orientation. Each image is associated with two different letters: a paintbrush becomes “A for Art” in one direction and “Y for Yellow” in the other; a heart reads as “H for Heart” on one side and “L for Like” on the reverse.

By reassigning images to multiple letters, the book gently unsettles the apparent stability of language and representation. What seems fixed—a form, a word, an initial—reveals itself to be relative, dependent on context and point of view. Through this simple yet playful device, Closky transforms the learning of the alphabet into an exercise in perception, where reading becomes reversible and meaning remains open.

At once educational and conceptual, the book invites children and adults alike to explore the fluid relationship between images, words, and interpretation.

52 pages. A5 format. Stapled binding. ISBN : 979-10-981814-1-2