The Charles Addams Mother Goose
New Yorkercartoonist (and creator of the altogether ookyAddams Familycharacters) Charles Addams tampers with tradition to great  effect inThe Charles Addams Mother Goose, first published in 1967, and  now reissued as a deluxe edition. While Ms. Goose's original nursery rhymes  remain unchanged, Addams casts his spell on a selected few poems with new visual  twists. A less wholesome, more anemic Mistress Mary has never been seen, and her  bare-lightbulb-lit basement garden of mushrooms and heads of "pretty maids all  in a row" is quite unsettling. Jack Sprat and his wife are, of course,  cannibals. Nine-day-old porridge is disgusting... so naturally a witch is the  porridge preparer, and goblins are the only ones who would like it "nine days  old." Humpty Dumpty's story, on the other hand, feels a little cheerier than the  original: rather than leaving the egg irreparably broken, the illustrator shows  a dinosaur hatching! Tee Addams, Charles Addams's wife, writes an insightful  introduction for this lovely, oversized edition, and the book closes with a  scrapbook of family photos and pictures of Addams's earlier work. Kids familiar  with Mother Goose's rhymes will be delighted (and perhaps only slightly  terrified) by Addams's playful interpretations. (All ages)--Karin  Snelson