Customer Reviews

The Neighborhood Mother Goose

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My two boys love this book. Each night they pick 4 of their favorites for me to read. After two weeks of reading this book - they know almost all the words to all of the poems. This is a great way to teach kids the old rhymes with cool hip photos and computer manipulations which make the tales leap off the page and in to your home.

An English professor told us that the best way to instill a love of reading in to your child is to encourage them to memorize and enjoy nursery rhymes and tales. This book is the perfect first intro.

As a music teacher in a city school, I have used this book to introduce children to nursery rhymes and to give those who already know them a new understanding. The photo illustrations are beautiful and depict the text using modern city-scape images. My students can interpret the meaning of these treasured old rhymes by looking at illustrations of kids who look just like they do. The book features photographs of children with different skin and hair colors, styles of dress, and kids of various ages.

Old nursery rhymes with a new look. If your child has ever wondered what "pickled peppers" were, pick up this very contemporary look at favorite rhymes. Illustrations are an update to the old style that left young ones wondering what some of the rhymes were about. Crews gives Mother Goose a new look that was long overdue. Kids love this one!

We all know and love them, those little rhymes and verses we learned as children. Nina Crews brings new life to these timeless treasures in her book THE NEIGHBORHOOD MOTHER GOOSE. In the book, which includes over 40 rhymes and verses, she pairs such verses as "This little pig went to market," "Rain, rain, go away," and "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe" with her stunning photographic creations. The photographs feature children from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and as a result any child that reads the book is sure to find someone on the pages that look like them. I also liked the fact that the photos included both mothers AND fathers interacting with children in a positive way. This is a book that I highly recommend, because it can serve as a way that parents can share a part of their childhood with their children. Many of the collections of nursery rhymes that I have encountered include dated photographs that are not particularly exciting for today's children. The eye-popping and intricate photography is worthy of endless discussion in its own right. This book is definitely a must have for any young child's library.

Reviewed by Stacey Seay

of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

The Neighborhood Mother Goose has the text of common nursery rhymes accompanied by photo collages that depict children acting out the rhymes in an urban setting. Contemporary children, adults, pets and clothes are all used together to create interesting, visually stimulating collages of various photographs that are often transposed, enlarged or shrunken, and overlapped, so that, for instance, many real children appear to really be living in a big shoe! This interesting update on classic nursery rhymes is a good way to offer a different perspective on the old tales, while still teaching the child culture. This book would be recommended for toddlers and young school-age children, for those that live in an urban area and will recognize the setting, or for those children who live elsewhere and can see what city life is like. Either way, it's a unique way to depict familiar tales in a new and fascinating way- through real life photographs, not old-fashioned paintings. This book was nominated as a Notable Book by the American Library Association.

Wow, what a cool book Nina Crews' has made! She's taken Mother Goose rhymes and verses we know and love and has also introduced us to some we don't know.

How? Just by taking photographs in an urban setting, using multi-cultural children to make them current and up to date and easy for your child to relate to. There are so many versions of Mother Goose books, but this one really is cool and is worth looking into!

Here are the rhymes and verses included in this book:

As I was going along
A was an apple pie
Bow, Wow, Wow
Cobbler, Cobbler
Dance, Little Baby
Diddle, Diddle Dumpling
Georgie Porgie
Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play
Hey Diddle Diddle!
Humpty Dumpty
Hush-a-bye, Baby
Itsy- Bitsy Spider
Jack and Jill
Jack, Be Nimble
Ladybug, Ladybug
Little Miss Muffet
Luck Locket
Man in the Moon Looked out of the Moon
Mary, Mary, quiet contrary
Once I saw a Little Bird
One, Two, Three, Four, Five,
One, Two, Whatever You Do
Pat-A-Cake, Pat-A-Cake
Peas Porridge Hot
Peter Piper
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat
Rain, Rain, Go Away
Ride a Cockhorse
Ring Around the Rosie
Roses Are Red
There Was A Little Girl
There Was An Old Woman Tossed In A Blanket
There Was An Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe
This Little Pig Went to Market
Three Wise Men of Gotham
To Market, To Market
Touch Blue
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
Wee Willie Winkie Runs Through the Town
When I was A Little Boy

This is the fifth copy of this book that I have purchased for myself and as gifts. I am a mother, grandmother as well as being a preschool teacher for 30 years. The children in my class just love nursery rhymes and repeat them and fill in the word if I pause at the end of a line. I just love the pictures and this makes the rhymes more realistic in this day and age.

Excellent multicultural pictures - all shades of children and a nice collection of rhymes.

The Neighborhood Mother Goose features 40 nursery rhymes. Some of them are well known such as Humpty Dumpty and Little Miss Muffet. Yet there were a few in the book that we did not know in our family. The book features color photos of kids enjoying life in their neighborhood

The pictures of all the different children were interesting to look at. We also enjoyed hearing a few nursery rhymes that we did not know in our family.

The book would make a great story time or bedtime tale. You could read a few rhymes at a time to your child and discuss what they are all about.

We have several books by this author and if you've never seen her work, start with the Neighborhood Mother Goose! Classic nursury rhymes told with beautiful photography, children of color and wonderful imagination.