Other Goose

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