One of the most common types of interaction between parents and their very young children is picture-book reading, with alphabet books being one of the most popular types of book used in these interactions. Here we report two studies examining alphabet letter learning by 30- to 36-month-old children in book-reading interactions with an adult. Each child encountered either a standard type of children's book or a book with manipulative features--flaps, levers, textures and other elements designed to elicit physical manipulation. In the first study, the children learned more letters with the relatively plain books than with a book with manipulative features. The manipulative elements apparently distracted them from the information in that book. In the second study, a manipulative feature that was specifically designed to attract children's attention to the letters did not facilitate performance. These results are consistent with the theoretical concept of dual representation and they have important practical implications for the design and selection of educationally oriented books for very young children. (Contains 4 figures and 1 table.)