Annotated Mother Goose

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Summary: Exploration of historical background of English rhymes
Review: "Things you never knew" might be a subtitle for this comprehensive volume of familiar and lesser-known nursery rhymes. Some are the "folk rhymes of children" from other parts of Europe, but in the United States they have all become "Mother Goose Rhymes." >From Medieval jingles with ancient hidden meanings, to politically cogent British street chants, the collection proceeds finally to those rhymes published in 1870 in Philadelphia. Fascinating historical notes in the half-page margins explain all or most of the 884 rhymes. These reveal the true (and often amazing) reasons and purposes of what we have assumed to be "nonsense" devised by and for children. Early woodcuts and print illustrations are reproduced including those by Kate Greenaway, Randolph Caldecott, Arthur Rackham and Maxfield Parrish. Highest value of this book would be to folklore scholars, collectors of children's material and those who have never suspected what is behind the rhymes we have passed down through the generations for three hundred years. Recommended as surprising reading for curious people, of what we have taken for granted for so long. It is a volume that should not be out of print in hard cover; the paperback version is unreadable except by those with magnifiers or by elves.

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Summary: History and Meaning behind Mother Goose
Review: An outstanding book for those interested in the origins and meanings of the old nursery rhymns and tales. Written in mideval times, before radio and TV, families gathered in their huts and told folk stories. The nursery tales had double meanings so that what entertained the children at one level, conveyed an entirely different tale to the adults. The origins, histories, and meanings of these tales are reviewed. I read this book out of curiosity in graduate school and thought it fascinating. Now, almost forty years later, I can find no better, now that I find myself asked to teach a class on this area.