J. Otto Seibold

Vunce Upon A Time is all sorts of adorable. This unique picture book pairs Siobhan Vivian's brilliant illustrations with a story from one of my favorite authors, J. Otto Seibold. If you haven't had a chance to dive into any of Siebold's other stories I'll give you a quick sum up. They are always quirky, always adorable, and always something you won't find anywhere else. That's why I was so excited to meet Dagmar!

Dagmar's story is short and sweet. He's a vampire who just so happens to be a show more vegetarian! However, despite his love of leafy greens, his all time favorite snack is none other than candy. Happily, Halloween just so happens to be the perfect time to get tons of free candy! This story follows Dagmar as he tries to figure out how to make his Halloween night a big success, without running into any scary humans. What is one little vampire to do?

Reading a book to kindergartners is always a worry for me. It has to hold their attention really well or they'll be antsy within minutes. Dagmar didn't disappoint! They fell in love with his silly story, and were extremely amused that he was afraid of humans. We had a great discussion about what being a vegetarian means, and even tied it in to learning about different types of vegetables. I would have liked to see a little more mention of that topic in the story, but it was just as adorable as is. After all, Halloween is all about the candy.

The illustrations are really what brought the story to life. Vivian's illustrations pop off the page and brought forth quite a few giggle sessions from the kids. The pages where Dagmar was debating on a costume had them howling with laughter! If I had to sum this book up in three words: fun, unique and cute. Never before have I met a vegetarian vampire, but Dagmar is definitely my kind of storybook character! I look forward to more of his adventures and I know that my kids do too! show less

I wanted to like this, but the poetry is very weak. The poetry is changed just for the sake of change--the new versions aren't always clever, either intrinsically or as parodies on the originals. The 're-rhyming' seems to have spoiled some perfectly good rhymes and left poorly rhymed poems with no rhythm to speak of. For example:

Why sing a song of sixpence?
That money doesn't make sense.
And who puts blackbirds in a pie?
I really have to wonder why.

Compared to the original:

Sing a song of

show more

sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.

In the original, the meter of the third line echoes the first, and the longest line is six syllables. In the 'improved' version, there's no such symmetry, there are up to eight syllables per line, and it's just generally harder to read. I focus on the number of syllables per line because a good part of the charm of the originals is in the short, forceful lines of each poem. As Hannibal Lecter reminds us:

Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;
Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

This should be read intensely. Strictly speaking, the lines are a bit longer, but the pause in the middle means that they may each be read in two shorter segments.

Many of the poems in Other Goose do indeed have shorter lines, but they generally still don't read well. Consider:

Baa baa black sheep,
have you any wool?
"Hmmm, let me see,"
he said after a lull.

The latter two lines flow very poorly, and I want to stress the second syllable in 'after' if I pause where the line breaks indicate, which isn't nice at all. It sounds a bit better if I read it "Hmmm, let me see, he said/after a lull.", but I shouldn't have to go over every nursery rhyme, carefully deciding where to pause and how to stress the words so they come out smoothly; nursery rhymes, as this very book indicates, should be memorable--this is not made easier by the poems being hard to read aloud.

Apart from all this criticism, I did like the art, generally. The sequence for "Jack B. Nimble" was fun, and everything was colorful and interesting, if not a little odd.

I'd love to see this artwork with better poems, and I do think there's some room for reworking nursery rhymes into something more modern. But I don't think that Other Goose succeeds at doing this. show less

This review first appeared on my blog: http://jewelknits.blogspot.com/2010/11/other-goose-by-jotto-seibold-book.html

I was lucky enough to win this book as part of a children's book prize package from Debbie's World of Books. Before I could get the books catalogued and put away for Christmas presents for the Grandbebes, Bebe Boy James saw them. AND he took two of them for himself, including this one!

BUT the grandbebes were all visiting yesterday, and they wanted Gigi Storytime, so James show more brought this book out for us. Grandbebes' ages: 5, 4, 3, and 1. The older girls oohed and aahed over the cover ("It has sparklies on it, Gigi!") and they kept feeling it up (because it's textured too). Grandbebe Girl Makayla thought it tasted pretty good, as she kept trying to chew on the corner of the cover, and Grandbebe Boy JoJo: "Cool pictures, Gigi!". That was all before I even got to open the book!

Finally, after a number of ominous threats about them NOT being able to see the INSIDE of the book, I was able to get the grandbebes all to sit down in a floor circle (well, arc), while I, Queen Gigi Storyteller, FINALLY opened the book.

The book opening caused all of my storytelling planning to go out the window, as four little ones scrambled up so they could touch the book again. "Pretty pretty pictures, Gigi!" As the older tots pushed in, Grandbebe Girl Makayla was once again able to get a good taste, since she was in the front and her face was kinda squished against the cover of the book.

It took a while to get through this one. "OOH, look at that bird!" "THAT'S not how you say that rhyme; HERE'S how you say it!" "Look at what they're doing to that shoe!" ... but I think they liked it, as they wanted me to read it AGAIN.

THEN their moms started in. "Mom, why don't you give ME that book?" "NO! I asked first!" "No; your brother saw it and claimed it already" .. and ... sigh ... well, I live in a real house, with real bebes and grandbebes. I always have this wonderful, serene picture in my head of quietly attentive grandbebes sitting in a circle and pointing from afar at the pictures while I read. Wouldn't THAT be lovely?

So, anyway, this book is gorgeous. The illustrations are lavish and richly colored and just plain awesome. The rhymes are indeed re-mastered, and I'm not really certain that the grandbebes understood all of them, but it's big and it's pretty and they all want it, which means that I have to buy at least two more copies for Christmas (one for each household).

I think you should buy it too.

Book Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (only because some of the rhymes were 'over the heads' of the grandbebes) show less

Surreal, and wrong, and totally not for me. I saw a sloth at a nature park and was lucky enough to see it when it was feeling fidgety... it was *not* slow and awkward. I should not have bothered with this after disliking the author's Olive book, but the cover looked different. Inside is at least as crazy as that fractured Santa story, though.

Rating my own. I cannot guess what children would think of it, and my inner child is hiding from the book.