The Real Mother Goose

Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright

Hey, hey, hey!  It's the full book!  And it's widely available and constantly being reprinted.

This is a great compilation of all the essential nursery rhymes with tons of early 20th century Classical revival style illustrations.  Very Ars Nouveau, I think.

I'm no art historian, and I recognize that that description is kind of terrible.

 Look at this Robin Hood.  So effeminate.  Tall and lean with a baby face.  Pale blended watercolours with a fine outline.  I love it.

There are many, many full page illustrations, and most pages have smaller illustrations intertwined with the text.

The text is a little old fashioned.  A lot of death and gore and stuff, just the way it's always been.  But you can always pick and choose which rhymes you read aloud.  It's a big thick hardcover.

Young Canada's Nursery Rhymes

 Illustrated by Constance Haselwood

Originally printed as a British collection of nursery rhymes in England, it was re-titled and shipped to Canada back when it was first settled.  A copy was found more recently and it was reprinted.

These original illustrations are fantastic.  The rhymes chosen are not all the most popular ones, which makes it a fun little book.  I'm happy that it exists and that I've found it, but it isn't nearly as appealing to my kids as other collections that I've found.

Slinky Malinki, Open the Door

 By Lynley Dodd

YES!  Another Slinky Malinki book!  We were so happy to find this at the library.

Slinky and his pal Sticky Beak Sid open doors and make a mess!

 Every page that shows Slinky opening a door has the same text.  Once your audience learns it, they can chant along with you.  If you peek into the next room, you can guess where they're headed next.

Flip the page, and there's more lovely rhyming verse about the incredible mess that they make in the house.  They destroy everything!  There's a great punchline at the end of the book!

Tons of fun.

Ring-A-Ring O' Roses

 By Alan Marks

This is a fantastic collection of nursery rhymes.  I've been searching the library for something decent, and this one was hiding in the bookshelf at home.  The words are slightly different than what I'm used to in some cases, but it's close enough to the versions found in the Oxford collections.

Each page has several poems, and the pictures for the poems are blended together.  There's a lot of play with perspective in the paintings and the characters and settings are a-typical.

All of the standard rhymes are in there.  All of my kids' favourites.  I don't think I'll be able to find anything much better than this.

Alligator Pie

 By Dennis Lee
Illustrated by Frank Newfeld

A Canadian classic.  It's got a few poems in here about places in Ontario.  Lots of CanCon.  But most of the themes are universal.

They're actually well written poems.  The difference between this author and most "children's authors" is that this guy writes poems for adults.  He's an actual poet.  So everything rhymes properly without much repetition and the rhythm matches up and you don't have to re-read the same line twenty times trying to make it work.

 This edition is the collector's edition, so it's got some notes from the author.  The idea was to create modern nursery rhymes about things that they actually encounter rather than be about ha'penny and clinkers and princesses and paupers.

My daughter is much less interested in many of these rhymes, mostly because she's too young; they're longer and she doesn't understand most of them yet.  She's absolutely crazy for the main poem, Alligator Pie, though.  She's constantly reciting it under her breath.

The pictures in this book are so dated, but I love them.  It's a shame that this edition is out of print.  It was only printed in 2001. 

Oh, crap, that was 14 years ago.  I'm old.

The History of The Hoppers

 By B Parker
Illustrated by N Parker

A well-known children's book from 1912.

It's a pretty cute book in verse about a family of kangaroos that operates a general store.

 The verse is perfect.  No problems with meter, and the vocabulary is varied.  I love books with varied vocabulary, especially if some of it is out of date or even just a bit advanced.  It means that the book is enjoyable for me, and that my kids are learning new words all the time.

My daughter likes to listen to the poems.  They're simple enough for her to understand.  The last two lines at the bottom are always about their pet dingo and are the only lone rhyming pair.  It's a really nice form.

Each page of verse is accompanied by a large glossy coloured picture.  The colours are dull, but my daughter doesn't seem to mind.  She's actually more interested in the characters.  (The children are very naughty, which is engaging.)


This is a classic for a reason, but I would say that it's really only appropriate for kids who have a long attention span.  Probably 4 or 5 years old minimum.

Over the Hills and Far Away

 Collected by Elizabeth Hammill

This is a collection of nursery rhymes from "around the world", but mostly just from the states.  They include a fair number of staples from England or Ireland, but they also have some more modern playground rhymes.

 Some of the best rhymes are the Chinese-American ones because they work in English, possibly are originally written in English.

Some of the worst are the Native American rhymes.  Most of the non-English rhymes, in fact, have been translated poorly.  Maybe there's a way to read them that works.  But without any notation to accompany them, they're just rhythmless rhymeless words.

 There are, however, hundreds of poems and songs in this collection.  It's a big heavy book.  So it doesn't really matter that some of them aren't to my liking, because there's tons to choose from.  There's tons of art to choose from, too.  Each set of pages is done by a different artist in a different style.

I don't think I'd buy this book, but it was pretty great to take out of the library.

The Real Mother Goose - Book One

 Traditional (Rand McNally & Co)
Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright


These are traditional nursery rhymes.  It's a little board book with a good selection and 1920's style art.

I like it.  It's basic.  It's exactly what I'm looking for in a nursery rhyme book.

Also, I got it second hand for a dollar, so the baby can chew on it.

The Oxford Nursery Treasury

 By Ian Beck

A generic book of Nursery Rhymes!  We've been looking for something for a while, but it's hard to know if something is good or not without seeing it first hand, so I'm going through whatever the library chooses to stock.


 The rhymes are some of the better ones taken from the full Oxford Book.  The accompanying pictures aren't bad, either.

But there are stories as well, and the stories are dreadful.  The tortoise and the hare, for instance, have a bet involving vegetables and they write the hare to be particularly odious so that you can feel particularly great about him losing to the tortoise.  I spent the entirety of "The Princess and the Pea" hoping that the two 12 year old royals didn't end up married at the end (of course, they do), and my daughter didn't care much for the story either; she cut in at the end to ask the only really important question, "DID THEY EAT THE PEAS!?!?"

It was reading this book that made me realize that I really hate most fairy tales.  I can't stand the popular ones, at least.  But I know that if I start in on things like "The Tinder Box" we'll be dealing with nightmares for weeks.  It's a real dilemma.

When We Were Very Young

By A. A. Milne

This is a favourite in our family.  My daughter is getting close to being three years old, and she's ready for most of the poems in this book.  She sits quietly, leaned forward into the book, and excitedly shouts at me when something interesting happens.  Things like, "I think he's going to play with the puppy!" or "He found the rabbits!"

She doesn't say anything at all for poems like "The King's Breakfast" or "Rice Pudding", because she is too engrossed.  She does yell at me when I open the book, though, to make sure that I read those particular poems.

A A Milne is the author of Winnie the Pooh.  A poet and playwright.  The rhyming and rhythm in this book are not only functional but inventive.  The form of the poems is varied and often unpredictable, but always perfectly suited to the story.