Philip Reed (3)

I had mixed feelings about this book. I liked the book because it had all the nursery rhymes that I was familiar with such as The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe and other classic nursery rhymes. The word play in each poem has a similar rhyming pattern having words rhyme at the end of every other sentence. For example, “Jack Sprat could not eat no fat. His wife could eat not lean, and so betwixt the two of them, they licked their platters clean. A reason I did not like this book is because the pictures were very dull. The pictures did not have very much color on them and they were very small. The page in the book was primarily white with bulky, black text on it. For example, in the poem, Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse’s fur was a very dull grey in color and it did not show any exciting action of him heading towards the clock. There was also a border to show where the picture ended which was practically a square. This would not be a book you want for looking at pictures. The theme of the story is that stories can be silly and fun. That is why reading can be fun.… (mere)

I have grown up reading Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes and I have always loved them. They are a good way to get children to learn how to read because of the rhyming, the rhythm, and the play on of words. The poems are short and easy to read. These books would be a great resource for English Language Learners and for early to beginning readers. The only thing that I did not like about this book was that there are not titles on the poems. Most of the poems take up one page each, so an adult reading this would know that but children may not understand that there are separate readings and get confused. However, I do enjoy reading all the different nursery rhymes. They range in topics such as famers, town and city life, animals, nature, etc. Thus, these nursery rhymes can appeal to all ages and gender. There illustrations are short and sweet and go along with each rhyme. If a rhyme does not make sense to the child then they can refer to picture which not all poetry books do. I also like how the poems are silly and some not very realistic. I think that aspect engages the reader, especially readers of a young age. I would recommend this book to parents with children learning how to read and I would recommend that teachers of primary grades keep one in the classroom.… (mere)