Customer Reviews

My Very First Mother Goose

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My son is 18 months old and absolutely loves this wonderful book. He enjoys having any book read to him, but Mother Goose's frequent references to the sun, moon, stars (all favorites topics to my son)and Rosemary Wells' charming illustrations of bunnies, kitties, etc. add up to pure reading fun at our house. These nursery rhymes aren't too intense (some Mother Goose can be downright scary), and are just the right length for a 1- to 2-year old's attention span. And I enjoyed getting to know some nursery rhymes I missed out on as a child (Wibbleton to Wobbleton is a hoot). A few of the book's pages have been ripped in my son's enthusiasm for the subject matter, but this book is a nice change from our dozens of board books at home. I highly recommend this book for toddlers who enjoy being read to and for parents who love to do the reading.

"My Very First Mother Goose" is the perfect gift for new parents. Children love rhymes, but, unfortunately, most babies in America today hear very little poetry and rhyme. This book is a gerat way to introduce children to rhyme. The big pages, brightly colored, warm illustrations, and fun, happy rhymes will captivate any baby or toddler. It is very important that babies are read to from birth. From birth to 6 mos, a baby will become accomsomed to the sound of the parent's voice and to the sounds of the English language. From 6 mos to 18 mos, baby will begin responding to favorite stories and rhymes. By three years of age, a baby who has been read to every day will be ready for chapter books such as "Charlotte's Web." A child who has been read to, for just a few minutes each day, will learn to love to read. Children who love to read become excellent readers, thus excelling in history, science, math, literature.... The illustrator of "My Very First Mother Goose", Rosemary Wells, is an strong advocate of literacy. She encourages all parents to turn off the t.v's and read, for fifteen minutes a day, to their children. "My Very First Mother Goose" is the perfect place to start!

I was brought up with the rhyme "Hickory Dickory Dock" but it appears in this book as "Dickory Dickory Dock". Perhaps someone out there could explain this different version.

Overall, I like the lovely illustrations, large collection of rhymes (some I have never seen before) and creative layout of the words, however my toddler prefers the Lamaze boardbook of Mother Goose with its durable, easy-to-flip pages. Also, the illustrations, though lovely and imaginative, are a bit sophisticated for the youngest readers. For instance, Humpty-Dumpty is not an egg-shaped character but a tiny, faceless, edible white-shelled egg. Jack and Jill are rabbits not children as are most of the other traditionally human characters.

My advice is to buy this book for its extensive collection of rhymes and beautiful and artistic illustrations, BUT you may want a simple, traditional Mother Goose on hand as well for daily reading.

My 14mo old daughter will bring this book to me 3-4 times a day so I can read it to her. She absolutely loves it, and doesn't seem to get tired of the rhymes. I may have to buy another copy soon as she's not real gentile with books, but it will be money well spent. This beats a Barney or Teletubbies video hands down for educational value, and lives WITH her toys, not up on some bookshelf. I highly recommend it.

As the mother of four, I think I've read Mother Goose rhymes probably tens of thousands of times over the years. We've checked many Mother Goose books out of the library, but (thanks to my mom), this is the one we own. We return to it time and time again for several reasons. First, of all, it's big, which I really like because it means that I don't have to read the same rhymes night after night after night. There's ample room in it to poke around (also its size has allowed Opie to include in it some we didn't know - but quickly learned. My favorite of these is "Wash the dishes, Wipe the dishes, Ring the bell for tea; Three good wishes, Three good kisses, I will give to thee.") I also really like Opie's selection of rhymes. She's left out some of the grimmest, which makes the book appropriate for even the smallest of readers. This is not to say, however, that this a bland book. For Opie has included many really fun pieces. And this leads me to comment on Rosemary Wells' illustrations, which are warm and funny, in the most beautiful colors. She lends her own touch to this book. Sometimes she offers a new interpretation of a rhyme (see, for example, Humpty Dumpty, which it turns out in Wells' world really concerns a small bunny not very fond of boiled eggs). In other pictures, she simply adds hilarious, unexpected, fascinating detail. My daughters Rose, 2, and Daisy, 6, and I laughed and laughed over this book today, turning a sad sick morning into a happy time. I regularly find Rose, who is generally given to activities like bouncing, sitting quietly, poring over this book. This is the one to buy.

Iona Opie spent her life collecting children's folklore. The selection of nursery rhymes in this book shows the knowledge of what children really have an affinity for that she gained over that time. This is not a collection of what adults think children ought to lie - it's a collection of what they do like.

The illustrations and the layout of the book continue the quality of what children like. The layout gives no more than one rhyme per page. This limits the contents of the book but matches the attention space of the age the book targets. The illustrations are not of humans but of animals in the lineage of Richard Scarry, the Bernsteins, etc. This gives the book a cozy, lap feeling that is age appropriate.

Grandchildren and grandnieces/nephews have all received this book. In all cases it became the Mother Goose of choice for parent and child. That is the best recommendation the book could have.

This book may keep Mother Goose nursery rhymes alive for many more generations to come. I was not particularly drawn to Mother Goose books - many of the rhymes I could remember seemed irrelevant to me. But this book has changed my view. My 3 1/2 year old son and I read it together regularly - he now chants the rhymes along with me. The collection is so well done, with rhymes you'd be happy to read to any child (none of the violent or gory rhymes), and the illustrations are utterly perfect & add tremendously to the content of the rhymes. We have shelves full of children's books, but I would put this in the top 2 or 3 - this is a classic.

I have never been a big fan of Mother Goose books---generally because I am not a poetry fan and let's face it---they are poetry! But when I saw my favorite children's author, Rosemary Wells, illustrated this book, I had to have it, and I am so glad I did! My boys love it and so do it. Her painting for this book are so interesting and varied, and they incorporate themes that are real crowd pleasers in the under 6 set---lots of moons, trains and pictures of bunnies that look a lot like Max, her hero of her great Max and Ruby series. The selections here include some of the more unusual Mother Gooses, along with the old favorites. My boys ask for this book over and over and are learning a lot of Mother Goose. This is definately worth adding to your library.

This is the best Mother Goose book I have ever read. So many nursery rhymes are surprisingly violent but this book just contains the happy ones. Our daughter at age two could recite almost the whole book. She loves it and so do we. We bought another copy for our second daughter because it is a keeper.

We have several different collections of Mother Goose rhymes, and this is by far the best, both in terms of its illustrations and layout and in terms of the rhymes chosen. Our 22-month-old son loves this book -- he calls it "Mama Guck" (his version of "Mother Goose") and both he and we recommend it highly.

I think it's especially nice that this book contains none of the more ugly and/or overly violent Mother Goose rhymes which sometimes turn up in other collections (those icky ones with lines like "Taffy was a Welshman/Taffy was a cheat", "And whipped her little daughter/For spoiling her nice new clothes", etc.) -- all the rhymes here are ones I really want my son to know.