Guided by Dadaism, an artwork motion that sought to reject logic, writer Jon Scieszka and illustrator Julia Rothman flip conventional nursery rhymes on their heads within the playful, subversive The Real Dada Mother Goose.
Nonsense and absurdity take heart stage as Scieszka and Rothman spin and twist six evergreen verses inside out and the wrong way up. Each verse is reworked into a number of new variations; some change construction and even swap mediums solely. Among the renditions of “Humpty Dumpty” are a “boring” model, by which the well-known royal horses and horsemen don’t “really have / do to anything,” a censored model with key phrases hid by blue rectangles and a model translated right into a collection of overseas languages. “Jack Be Nimble” is introduced in each secret codes and Esperanto, a widely known constructed language, whereas “Hickory Dickory Dock” is written partially in Egyptian hieroglyphs. “Hey Diddle Diddle” turns into a haiku, and “Twinkle Twinkle” is reworked right into a rebus image puzzle.
The superb readers for this 80-page image e book will probably be elementary faculty kids who’re previous nursery rhymes and take into account themselves world-weary sufficient to need to poke enjoyable at their toddler years. If these kids additionally like fixing puzzles, even higher: The e book’s considerable, inviting backmatter gives definitions for and explanations of the best way to work with the various units employed within the e book, comparable to anagrams, Spoonerisms (“Nack be jimble. / Quack be jick.”), the NATO phonetic alphabet and extra.
The e book is devoted to Blanche Fisher Wright, who illustrated the favored The Real Mother Goose in 1916 and whose artwork is reproduced all through these pages. A biographical word about her in addition to a bibliography of her titles is included within the backmatter. Rothman inserts her personal impish, comical drawings round reproductions of Wright’s work, comparable to within the “Jabberwocky” model of “Old Mother Hubbard,” the place the title character seems with three heads. Rothman additionally populates the pages with “Dada Geese,” who function guides by this madcap journey.
The Real Dada Mother Goose is a completely entertaining e book enhanced by detailed and plentiful backmatter. This handbook for inventive mischief is bound to encourage many hours of Dadaist delight.
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