Tomie's Little Mother Goose

I've got a review I want to share.  If you don't like it, don't despair. You can always come back another day -- and if you don't I never liked you anyway!!!

THREE PROS
*Can't think of a book that does a better job of cramming in all the classics (and a few super obscure ones as well) into one spot
*Some of the quatrains are even better when accompanied with a visual (like fitting a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker into a wooden tub)
*"Tickly, tickly on your knee, if you laugh you don't love me" might be my new fave game (I'm gonna have to wait about a year before it makes sense to my little guy)

THREE CONS 
*There are a few strange substitutions to the classics (hush-a-bye baby in the tree top?) that I just assumed were the original ways of reciting them; that is until I saw Yanke Doodle going to town (instead of the correctly spelled Yankee Doodle)
*I never thought I'd ever say this, but c'mon, how many cats can you put in here that have nothing to do with the story
*I would have left out any nursery rhyme involving diddling your son John with his trousers on

ONE DAD'S OPINION
It's tough to argue with a book that packs in this much content.  It's not perfect, but it's definitely worthwhile.  I would have liked to have seen it divided into two sections that separated the known ones from the randoms, but that's a lot of wishful thinking on my part.  I don't know -- I guess my main issue with it is that it needs some pauses between stories since it all kind of runs together. [Which makes my usage of the term cram that much more appropriate.]                         

Buy / BORROW / Donate / Destroy


2 comments:

Glass Is Half said...

Hi nice review and really like your "scale" - Buy / BORROW / Donate / Destroy - would you mind if I utilized something similar on my site?

I've got my daughter reading by herself now (and posting updates too ... although I'm the one typing them right now although I hope that will change soon) and my son is completely into books about knights and battles so I expect/hope that he will become a reader of the classics one day also.

Its really good to get them started early as a love of (good) books goes a long way in life! :)

mysteryguy said...

Agreed about the power of books. As far as the scale goes, I would ask that you don't copy it exactly. Similar works though...