Starred Review ALA Booklist (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Starred Review Fans of visual jokes and inspired, goofy wordplay will fall on this transformation of Blanche Fisher Wright's classic Real Mother Goose with honks of delight. The story of "Humpty Dumpty" kicks things off, first with hilariously censored and expanded renditions, a "postcard from camp" version, a reading in Morse code, and then telephone-style translations from English to Finnish to Zulu to Latin to Samoan and then back to a barely recognizable: "Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. / Humpty Damage Damage. / King Humpty finds the horse, the glasses." Scieszka and Rothman, in the guise of "Dada Geese," proceed to go on to work different but similarly wild changes on "Jack Be Nimble" and four other nursery rhymes with mash-up pictures that incorporate clippings from the original illustrations with scissors-wielding geese, random reptiles, and other additions tumbled together. Then, to follow up, likewise fulsome (if more coherent) back notes not only unpack all of the tricks, techniques, and linguistic tomfoolery but also include histories of Wright, Mother Goose, and even copyright law l to goose readers into taking their own chosen texts or images on similarly freewheeling rides.

Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Deconstructed nursery rhymes entertain and delight in this mischievous endeavor.It's not every nursery-rhyme collection that pays homage to the Oulipo school of thought (more specifically, Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style (1947)), but then again, few have Scieszka's keen eye for the absurd. Here, he applies a Dada sensibility to Blanche Fisher Wright's classic 1916 publication The Real Mother Goose. Taking six of Wright's original nursery rhymes, illustrations and all, Scieszka and partner in crime Rothman reimagine each poem in six different ways. From haiku and recipes to N+7 codes, pop quizzes to plays on Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" and much more, the rhymes are inventive and laugh-out-loud funny. Rothman plays with the original Wright illustrations, stretching, cutting, and reworking them in countless ways. This one is squarely aimed at an audience of older kids, and teachers and parents will revel at the extensive backmatter that includes everything from histories (of Morse code, Esperanto, spoonerisms, and more) to explanations of anagrams, hieroglyphics, rebuses, and Dadaism itself. All told this book is a marvelous anarchic celebration of "re-telling, re-illustrating, and re-mixing." (This book was reviewed digitally.)Stand aside, fractured fairy tales; neoist nursery rhymes are the new name of the game. Creativity incarnate. (bibliography) (Poetry. 9-12)

Horn Book (Tue Dec 03 00:00:00 CST 2024)

Since the 1992 publication of The Stinky Cheese Man (rev. 11/92), Scieszka has been upending conventions in children's literature. Here, he's back at it, with a Dadaist interpretation of Blanche Fisher Wright's classic The Real Mother Goose. Scieszka focuses on four Mother Goose rhymes plus "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," modifying each entry multiple times and creating absurdist variations. For example, he rewrites "Jack Be Nimble" backwards, in pig Latin, and in Esperanto; as Mad Libs-like fill-ins; as a multiple-choice quiz; and as a child's book report. Language-play abounds, including translations into Morse code; verbal and nominal substitutions; spoonerisms; and "Jabberwocky" ("Old Mother Jabbber went to the clabber, / to get her frum jub a gove"). Encouraging youngsters to create their own riffs on literature, Scieszka includes explanations of many of these linguistic conventions. Rothman illustrates each poem by altering Wright's original illustrations -- superimposing her own mixed-media collages on some, clipping others and rearranging the parts, adding geese to populate many pages. Clever, inventive fun.

Kirkus Reviews

Deconstructed nursery rhymes entertain and delight in this mischievous endeavor.It's not every nursery-rhyme collection that pays homage to the Oulipo school of thought (more specifically, Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style (1947)), but then again, few have Scieszka's keen eye for the absurd. Here, he applies a Dada sensibility to Blanche Fisher Wright's classic 1916 publication The Real Mother Goose. Taking six of Wright's original nursery rhymes, illustrations and all, Scieszka and partner in crime Rothman reimagine each poem in six different ways. From haiku and recipes to N+7 codes, pop quizzes to plays on Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" and much more, the rhymes are inventive and laugh-out-loud funny. Rothman plays with the original Wright illustrations, stretching, cutting, and reworking them in countless ways. This one is squarely aimed at an audience of older kids, and teachers and parents will revel at the extensive backmatter that includes everything from histories (of Morse code, Esperanto, spoonerisms, and more) to explanations of anagrams, hieroglyphics, rebuses, and Dadaism itself. All told this book is a marvelous anarchic celebration of "re-telling, re-illustrating, and re-mixing." (This book was reviewed digitally.)Stand aside, fractured fairy tales; neoist nursery rhymes are the new name of the game. Creativity incarnate. (bibliography) (Poetry. 9-12)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this children’s literature hat trick, Scieszka (the AstroNuts series) and Rothman (Can I Eat That?) mash up a loving spoof of the Blanche Fisher Wright classic, an introduction to Dadaism, and a tribute to Raymond Queneau’s renowned literary experiment Exercises in Style. Scieszka’s amanuenses are a flock of “Dada geese,” who wreak playful havoc on six nursery rhymes, creating six new variations on each. Some speak directly to reader experiences and interests; there’s a cursive-writ book report on “Jack Be Nimble” (“I liked this rhyme because there was some good action”), a pop quiz on “Hey Diddle Diddle,” and several versions involving secret codes. But the best examples gleefully dropkick the old chestnuts and see what new meaning falls out. These include a simile-laden version of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” (“Like a rug hung out to dry,/ Like a humming tsetse fly”) and a “Hickory Dickory” rendered in N+7—a language associated with Queneau’s circle that replaces “each noun in a text with the seventh noun following it in a dictionary.” Rothman collages Fisher Wright’s art (often featuring pale-skinned, early 20th-century figures) with an impressive array of graphic styles, including a comic strip, a map, and a recipe. Brains will be thoroughly twisted and tickled by this giddy, handsome celebration of language and logic. Back matter includes information on the variations employed. Ages 7–10. (Oct.)

School Library Journal (Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

K-Gr 3 —The off-kilter table of contents clues readers in to a less-than-conventional approach as Scieszka "play[s] around" with familiar characters and rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty, Jack Be Nimble, Old Mother Hubbard, Hey Diddle Diddle, Hickory Dickory Dock, and Twinkle Twinkle. Each of them is followed by several variations, including "censored" versions, a (failed) multiple choice test, a comic strip, haiku, Spoonerism, a recipe, a news report, and more. At the end, readers are invited to participate: "One, two, buckle my shoe./ Now YOU make these old rhymes new." Back matter includes note on Egyptian hieroglyphs, various codes, anagrams, and puzzles, Mother Goose history, and copyright; Rothman created the art for the book using collage and Blanche Fisher Wright illustrations. As the Little Dog says in the news report, "It was crazy, I just had to laugh." VERDICT Come for Scieszka; stay if you have readers with a particular sense of humor, or need silly story times and curriculum tie-ins.—Jenny Arch