Once children begin connecting with the natural world, it can be hard to stop them. Perhaps that is why the lovely new book by the young artists of Featherstone Center for the Arts, called Animals A-Z, has 49 paintings despite the potentially limiting 26 letters of the alphabet.

Imagine you start with the letter A; do you paint an alligator, aardvark, ape, alpaca or armadillo? It’s no easier at B; bandicoot, baboon, bison, bluebird or butterfly? And so the book is as wide as the children’s imagination — quite wide indeed. It’s a larger-than-coffee-table spiral-bound series of animals for each letter, rendered in acrylics and water-based inks on watercolor paper.

The vibrant book will have its debut this evening, Oct. 22, at a reception upstairs at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven at 7:30 p.m.

Students of “Miss Lani” Carney’s Animals in Art class invite all Islanders young and not-so-young to celebrate the launch of this beautifully crafted book. Copies are $50 and will be available at Island bookstores or through Featherstone.