Other Goose

September 27, 2010
Seibold's manic characters and seasick palette give Mother Goose a jolt of Red Bull. Humpty Dumpty buys elevator shoes, Little Boy Blue gets a tuba ("The sheep are in Venice,/ and the cow's in Aruba"), and his old woman, who lives in a sneaker, buys a stereo that ruins her hearing. Some rhymes are amped up ("Mary played a guitar jam/ with her little lamb"), some are goofy ("The little doggie clapped,/ the toothpaste stayed capped,/ and the cow cheered along with the moon"), and some need work in the rhyme and meter department ("He searched all the shelves/ again and again/ until Humpty found/ a true bargain"). The verse hardly matters, though, because the splat-bang humor and frenetic visuals grab most of the attention. When Simple Simon can't remember why he's at the fair (he's simple, after all), a flowchart in the sky above him starts with "PIE!" but all roads lead to "WHY?" Packed with offbeat snark, this collection is as likely to end up on a 20-something's coffee table as it is to join the bedtime reading pile. All ages.

October 1, 2010
"Little boy blue / come blow your tuba. / The sheep are in Venice, / and the cow's in Aruba." Pairing frenetic and garishly colored art to familiar rhymes in "more modern, more fresh, and well...more Goosian" versions, Seibold stakes out Stinky Cheese Man territory to introduce "Jack and Jill / and a pickle named Bill," the Old Woman Who Lived in a Sneaker ("She had a great big stereo speaker"), Peter Pumpkin Pickle Pepper and about two dozen more "re-nurseried" figures. Against patterned or spray-painted backgrounds, an entire page of umbrella-carrying raindrops float down, a bunch of mice run up ("the clock struck one; / the rest had fun"), cats fiddle for Old King Coal and others, Jack B. Nimble makes a lifelong career out of demonstrating his one trick and a closing rendition of the counting rhyme "One, Two, I Lost My Shoe" is transformed into a clever reprise as many of the characters return to take final bows. Sparkles on the cover; chuckles (despite some lame rhyming) throughout. (Fractured nursery rhymes. 7-9)

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2011

K-Gr 5-With its color-saturated pop-art cover featuring a modish Mother Goose wielding a can of spray paint, this is not your traditional nursery rhyme book. And that's unquestionably the point. Several dozen familiar nursery rhymes have been "re-nurseried, re-rhymed, re-mothered and re-goosed" to produce "Little Asleep Bo Peep," "Mary Had a Little Band," "Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away," "There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Sneaker," and so on. The fractured rhymes are hip and jokey but presuppose familiarity with the original versions for readers to appreciate them, and the poetic underpinnings of meter and rhyme sometimes lapse. Indeed, these modernized rhymes serve primarily as a vehicle for the wildly detailed artwork, which is the real strength here. Bold and richly hued illustrations, both computer-generated and produced using spray paint on wood panels, drench every page with jazzy, chaotic, and contemporary detail and visual gags. The multitudes of cartoonlike characters, some rather sinister looking, bear the artist's trademark elliptical black bug eyes. There's nothing overly warm and fuzzy here-these rhymes are a sophisticated riff that will appeal to some children but possibly more to adults.-Kathleen Finn, St. Francis Xavier School, Winooski, VT

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2010
Grades 2-5 There was an old woman / who lived in a sneaker. / She had a great big stereo speaker. In the spirit of Mother Goose rhymes, many of which started as parodies, the silly rhymes and wild, vibrantly colored pictures in this picture-book collection bring the nonsense up-to-date with technological and cultural references kids will recognize and silliness that is universal. Kids will enjoy the new twists on familiar scenes that range from Humpty Dumpty at the mall to Jack Splat, whose paintings are abstract, while his wifes are country scenes. Its raining, its boring, is for all ages, but most of the farce and the wordplay are for sharing and reading aloud with older grade-schoolers, who will best appreciate the satire and puns as well as the busy, full-page computer graphics. As Seibold says about nursery rhymes, The rhyme gets stuck in your head, and these selections will make great partners with the classics.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2011
From Jack and Jill and Bill (a pickle wearing a jaunty hat) to Little Miss Muffet (pronounced Muf-fay), Seibold tweaks the Mother Goose classics. The results vary in success; some of the pieces are memorable for their humor while others fall flat. Seibold's distinctive illustrations--here his digital art features spray-painted backgrounds--set a funky, hip scene for the "re-nurseried and re-rhymed" tales.

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)