Iona Opie (1923–2017)

Ii think that I have a few books by Iona Opie and she is a specialist in children's literature. Just checked and I have the Oxford Nursery Rhyme book edited by her. So she has a good pedigree for writing this book. Having moved around the world a bit when my kids were being exposed to nursery rhymes I appreciate how there are subtle differences between American and English versions of the rhymes ....but these all seem to be the classics that I recall and were the versions on all the kid's show more recordings (on cassettes) that we had for the children. ...Though I'm just looking at "Hey diddle diddle" and I realise that my dad used to recite it as "the little dog laughed to see such sport" ....whereas Opie has it "to see such fun".
Ah that wonderful classic...."To market to market to buy a fat pig".....Rosemary Wells has the fat hog riding home in the back seat of a luxury sports tourer. And whilst on the subject of Rosemary Well's illustrations....they are just brilliant. As Iona Opie says: "Her illustrations reflect Mother Goose's many moods: lumpish, her animals look wickedly askance at the world; happy, they almost dance off the page; cosily at home, there is no greater depth of contentment. They make me shout with glee". Yeh....I think that just about captures it. They are great illustrations...nearly all done with animal characters. I love them too. She's done a great job and Opie has selected the best of the rhymes. Happy to give it 5 stars. show less

Most reference books inspire imitation. This one inspires only admiration.

The reason is simple: To create another such reference, particularly one that would improve on the Opies's work, would be almost impossible.

There are a number of factors that make this a great book. To begin with, its fullness -- 550 nursery rhymes. Also there is the organization: The rhymes are organized topically by the key concept, but with an index of first lines so that they can be found by that means also. This show more organization has the advantage that it makes it easy to find multiple rhymes on the same topic. There is also an index of "notable figures" so that a reader can track down which editors were responsible for preserving and setting down particular rhymes.

And, in addition to the rhymes, there are the notes. These include historical and background notes, source notes, and cross-references. Often these are longer than the nursery rhyme itself, and frequently include variant forms of the rhyme.

Throw in a significant number of illustrations from early printings of the rhymes, and the net result is a book that almost certainly contains just about every useful fact known about these much-loved short poems. There are a few places where one can quibble with the result. But, after more than half a century, there has been no attempt to replace, or even to supplement, this book. That should be testimony enough to its quality. show less

I can't decide which I love more about this book, the rebellious creative rhymes that stay with you all day or the beautifully compatible illustrations. Either way, this is also an old favorite that I delighted in revisiting. What a wonderful way to introduce older children to the fact that poetry can be "cool".

A collection of children's rhymes, first collected in England in 1946, including things like taunts and insults, riddles, skipping rhymes, and mocking verses about schoolwork. Most of them probably aren't exactly the sort of thing you'd find in Mother Goose.

The rhymes themselves are mildly interesting, sometimes vaguely amusing, and often (from the perspective of a 21st century American) entertainingly quaint-feeling in their language. There are a few brief notes on a number of them in the show more back -- something I wish I'd realized while I was reading through them -- but not enough to make this feel more like a work of scholarship than a collection of amusements.

It would all be diverting for a few minutes and then pretty quickly forgettable, I think, except that this edition, from 1992, also includes some delightfully offbeat (indeed, sometimes charmingly grotesque) illustrations by Maurice Sendak. show less