ABC USA

This is a delightful visual tour of icons of Americana, presented by Jarrie as an alphabet of places, things and events in time, each one nicely portrayed in folk-art style as an individual panel. The combination of faux-naïve perspectives and crude textures of paint on wood panel achieve a rich sense of American history and culture, covering diverse regions and aspects of the Big Country. Given such a vast choice of subject matter, Jarrie has produced a nice blend of the obvious and the more obscure. At the back of the book each letter and image is reproduced at postage stamp scale along with a short explanation of the significance or history of each subject, from Alligators to Zydeco music through Kentucky Derby and Liberty Bell.