Title: Original Mother Goose, The Real Mother Goose (two versions of the same basic book)
Author: Mother Goose, illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright
File Under: Nursery Rhymes, Read-Aloud, Education, Collective Memory
Age Group: Tiny tots — even babes in arms — on up.
Dear Kristen, loyal reader, reminded me to bring the Library Project back around to books for little kids.
As you know, this project of mine is not designed to give you a post with every suggestion for a book in the category I'm thinking of. Personally, I get an anxiety attack from posts that try to round up all the things. Especially when it comes to books! Because first, there are many good books and usually, when you name a few, it leads you naturally to the others; and second, trying to be comprehensive in a post often leads to including less than stellar examples.
Here in this space I try never ever to recommend a book that isn't absolutely worth purchasing and treasuring forever. We are building a library! Not everything can or should go in the library. Sometimes you and I might disagree on a certain book, but at least you know that I love it and give it five stars (or someone very close to me does), and that I don't give five stars to any old random book. It will take me a long time to recommend even half the books I love, but you can be assured I won't scrounge up any that are actually just not that great, just to make a long list.
My idea here is to take it slowly. I'd rather discuss one or two books to try to give you a flavor for why I think them worthy, trusting that you will find others, than inundate you with a barrage of titles*. As always, we love to see what gets sparked in the comments, so do chime in!
Kristin's email was an opportunity to ponder the value of nursery rhymes in the development of language. Not long ago, I had reminded Deirdre to search out a volume for her little girl, who is learning to talk. She did, and their current favorite is listed below.
Then I was reading nursery rhymes to Molly (the same age as Finnabee) out in Oklahoma, and of course Pippo (who is 4) was drawn to listen and look at the illustrations (we were reading the Fujikawa version) along with us.
I worry that with the loss of the collective memory, people reduce learning to its seeming bare bones, thinking that this will suffice. And as adults always crave what is new, we forget that to children, everything is new! What is old to us is new to them! The advantage of the old things is precisely that they have stood the test of time. We're very foolish to think we should — or can — move on.
Nursery rhymes offer repetition in the context of whimsy and delight. They hone in on the experiences that are familiar and universal (a cross mother, a careless boy, a bad habit like getting up too late, the sun, the moon), making sense of nonsense but also enjoying nonsense.
The sheer fun of language gives rise to wonder at the fanciful world we would like to understand but so seldom can — at least not when we're two — but often also not when we're 82. Thus, a great-grandmother can enjoy reading a nursery rhyme to a toddler, which is not something you can say of many so-called educational materials we normally find these days, which are as dreary as they are condescending. (And don't get me started on political correctness.)
And Mother Goose rhymes aren't uniform. Some are long, some are short. A grateful fact when bedtime is late — as well as when you find you do have time to linger with your arm around your little one.
For language practice, you can't beat these rhymes and songs. That little one who can hardly do more than babble learns to wrap his tongue around tricky syllables. Interestingly, our forebears expected the youngest among us to encounter words like dainty, pride and folly, tuffet, melancholy, smithereens, tutor, and so on. Later, when the same child meets the same words in Shakespeare and the Bible, he won't be defeated, will he?
The child also learns to count — and to be patient. Many a time I coaxed a recalcitrant toddler of my very own up a vexing flight of stairs by chanting One, Two, Buckle my SHOE!
The older child listens in and suddenly gets certain things he never noticed before (as for that matter does the adult reading!).
This is culture and how you get it. Read the old things!
Some other collections we like:
Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever (Giant Little Golden Book) Richard Scarry always satisfies.
Mother Goose illustrated by Gyo Fujikama (the “look inside” feature on Amazon links to the wrong book, by the way). I love her style.
A Child's Treasury of Nursery Rhymes Kady MacDonald Denton — This is the collection and illustrator that Deirdre and Finnabee have been enjoying. It has the added interest of including rhymes from other traditions.
*There are a few great book lists, and I've linked to those in the original post, found here:
Lauren says
We also love Lavender’s Blues by Lines and Jones. The pictures are just so lovely and this ones has a few that the Real Mother Goose doesn’t. Such fun!
Tamara says
We are reading Lavender’s Blue for the first time and really enjoying it! We have a couple of other classic nursery rhyme books but I think Lavender is my personal favorite.
Kathia says
Every time I see any of Janet and Anne Graham Johnstone’s illustrations I get chills. They are so detailed and beautiful, and they also serve as glimpses into the past (especially clothing). This book of nursery rhymes was my favorite as a child, and is being read to my children:
http://www.amazon.com/Deans-Mother-Goose-Book-Rhymes/dp/B000B3FVLY
Laura says
We like the Iona Opie one with Rosemary Wells’ illustrations. My kids love that she tucks the characters from the poems into illustrations throughout the book. “Look! There’s Little Jumping Joan at the train station!” It is kind of hard to find the big volume with both books in it, which I prefer, but the smaller ones are easy to find.
Kate says
I have collected so many Mother Goose editions, it is ridiculous. I don’t have anybody to read them to now that my youngest is almost nine, but I’m saving them for my future grandchildren.
Erin says
The only Mother Gooses we have so far, we’ve received as gifts, because we’re looking for a good (old) one. Case in point: in both of our copies, the little old woman who lived in a shoe “kissed them all sweetly and sent them to bed.” That’s not how it went when I was 4! We’re making do with the lovely watercolors in Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes and R.L. Stevenson’s Child’s Garden of Verses.
Cristina says
We have each of these editions except for the last–I just can’t pass up a good Mother Goose book!
Last year I attended a baby shower that involved a game of filling in the missing part of 30 or so nursery rhymes. As we went around the room giving our number of correct answers most guests had maybe five or six right. When I had to give my number of correct answers, 28, I was upset with myself for missing any at all and also a little embarrassed at my apparently inordinately large repertoire of nursery rhymes 🙂
My boys have also gone through a phase when they wanted to check out the Richard Scarry’s Best Sing-a-long Mother Goose Video from the library over and over and over again which is pretty good, as far as children’s videos go.
Katie says
We love Gyo Fujikawa in our family, too, both “then” (from my childhood) and “now” (for our little ones). I’ve honestly never seen them at another family’s house, though, which I always found hard to believe. I assumed they were out of print (and possibly they were for a while?), but I’ve since discovered their availability on Amazon etc. I bought a new copy of “Babies” because the prior edition was literally loved into shreds. Seems like I remember a photo of Molly from not too long ago in which she is reading a Gyo Fujikawa book in bed . . . I thought, hooray, of course, great taste! I’ve had the GF Mother Goose in my cart for a while, waiting for a good occasion to add it to our household, but I keep hesitating because I inherited my copy of The World Treasury of Children’s Literature , which means we already have a huge collection of nursery rhymes therein. But the illustrations do leave something to be desired for engaging a toddler . . . maybe I should learn from Deirdre’s experience and go for something lovely and colorful. =)
mamabearjd(Michelle) says
The Richard Scarry one is a favorite at our house. I’m glad you mentioned that version. I pull it out occasionally and read during snack time.
charla says
I just ordered the Blanche Fisher Wright version yesterday!! We’re using the Living Books Curriculum booklist for our K/1st homeschool year and this is the version recommended. I can’t wait to dig into it!
We don’t have the Fujikama version of Mother Goose, but we do have the Child’s Garden of Verses and it is one of very favorite read-clouds!
Pippi says
We love the Tomie dePaola Mother Goose! Lots rhymes that I remember and new ones and we love the illustrations!
Karen says
I love nursery rhymes, so I was very excited to read this post for the library project. I collect Mother Goose books, so I actually have every one that was mentioned (including Dean’s Mother Goose), except for Deirdre’s version. I would like to mention the books that are my children’s favorites in case anyone is looking for suggestions.
“My Very First Mother Goose” by Opie/Wells
“Mother Goose and Friends” by Ruth Sanderson
“The Tall Book of Mother Goose” by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov
“Mother Goose Remembers” by Clare Beaton
“Tomie dePaola’s Mother Goose Favorites”
“Mary Engelbreit’s Mother Goose”
The Mary Engelbreit version is my 2-yr-old’s favorite book. We have read it so many times that the binding and pages are falling apart. There are one hundred rhymes in this version and my son knows them all by heart.
I have so many happy memories of reading nursery rhymes to my children. Thanks again for this post!
Mama B says
Yes yes! We have the BFW version, and my typically incorrigible 3 year old will rush off to bed when I start chanting “wee willie winkie”–he feels he has to be in his crib before I finish!
Mary Eileen says
I love rhymes and poems of all kinds. We’re really enjoying Beatrix Potter’s nursery rhymes right now . They have adorable illustrations, a wonderfully rich vocabulary, and are delightful to read out loud.
Juliana says
Thank you so much for this post! I also have several mother goose collections, but I’ll confess I’m not sure how to start reading them to my 15 month old (maybe he’s too young?) Could you please share how you read them… Randomly? Pick out favorites? In order? I know, silly question, but every time I pull out my collection I get overwhelmed, not sure where to start.
Leila says
Juliana, the way I do it is look at the pictures with them and see if they get excited about one in particular. Hopefully it coincides with one of the shorter rhymes! Read that. This is what I love about these collections — the longer rhymes are mixed in with very short ones, so you can skip about, finding the ones that your (even very young) child can sit still for.
Little by little, you work your way up to the longer ones. When you begin again with the next child, the older one has the attention span, and you will see — will be truly interested.
If you say certain ones as you are going about your day — like One, Two, Buckle My Shoe as you put on his shoes, Polly Put the Kettle On as you put the kettle on, Jack Sprat when you are cutting up his meat, and so forth — you find that already knowing the rhyme helps the squirmy toddler to sit and look at the pictures.
You can say, “Want to hear about Tom Thumb?” and he will nod yes… or else no 🙂
Kristen says
We also really like Tasha Tudor’s illustrations of Mother Goose.
pam says
Juliana, start with your favorites. I also read ones for the moment-seasonal, nap time, whatever is going on! Even pre-born babies love the rhythm of poem & nursery rhymes. As your littyle grows they start to express joy over their own special ones untill they ask you to read particular ones over & over.