SWING is the story of four letters who all would like to play on the swings. When the first letter (L) is approached by the second letter (V), they do not want to let them join, because they are from the middle whereas the second is from the far end. When the third letter (E) asks to join, the first two do not want them to join, because E is a vowel and therefore different. When the fourth letter (O) comes, the first three do not want them to swing, as O is round and they are made of straight lines. The fourth letter convinces them all to swing (after some more tussles), and when they do, they are all happy (and spell LOVE).

What I loved: The colors and ideas here are very cute. The story is relatively simple, and the colors are really bright. Children can relate to playing on the playground and approaching new potential friends, who may be different than they are. There are also some interesting new ways to classify the alphabet presented herein, which may spark some creativity.

What left me wanting more: A big thing that is missing is the resolution of the fighting (they eventually just all swing and are happy), but they were pretty rude to each other in the process with excluding based on differences. Reading between the lines, you can see that the four make something special together (LOVE), but this is never stated and their arguing not resolved- just ultimately ignored.

They are also all referred to as the first/second/third/fourth letter, which is not always easy to say aloud and also difficult to remember which one is which. The sequential ordering could be helpful in terms of a learning point, but the order is not so obvious, so it can be confusing at times.

Final verdict: Overall, this is a cute and simple picture book that presents new ways to look at the alphabet and can spark some discussions about welcoming others who may seem different than you.