Customer Reviews

Jessie Willcox Smith Mother Goose, The: Enhanced Edition, with Five Full-Color Prints Added

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This splendid book should be in every nursery library. It contains hundreds of nursery rhymes, some very well known to American children and some not so familiar including the 51 rhymes with morals found in the original Mother Goose collection that was printed by Isaiah Thomas in Massachusetts in the years just following the Revolutionary War.
The book is printed on high quality silk-smooth paper and is printed in large clear type with charming black and white accent illustrations of children and characters from that era. Familiar and well-known Mother Goose verses as well as perhaps unkown verses are included. Many beautiful illustrations by the amazing Jessie Willcox Smith enhance this volume, a few in black and white, but most in full color, full page glory. Smith, born in 1863 is, in my opinion, one of the finest illustrators of children ever. She never used professional models and preferred to search out the right child for the picture. As a result her illustrations bring images to us straight out of history and capture with an appreciative heart the sweetness of childhood, unsurpassed.
This book is truly a treasure, one that is sure to be enjoyed for many years to come.

This is a lovely book that I look forward to reading to my first grandchild due to be born in August, 2007.

This book is a classic that should be in every child's library. Not having read any of Mother Goose for many years, I had forgotten, though, how dark some of the rhymes are, with references to illness, death, etc. However, those are all part of life and children are, perhaps, best first introduced to such subjects via a harmless nursery rhyme--a less distubing lesson than when in the midst of the real thing. The book contains many small black and white illustrations interspersed throughout and a good number of richly colored illustrations. The colored illustrations are so very beautiful, that I could not imagine choosing any other edition of Mother Goose. Jessie Willcox Smith was an artist during the Golden Era of Illustration, and among the best of the best. Other illustrated editions of Mother Goose pale in comparison.