Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose
In a rare jolly mood, the Dillons illustrate 24 traditional counting rhymes with page-filling arrays of capering animals, diminutive grotesques, and human figures wearing partial or full-head masks. The verses progress from 1,2,3, / the bumblebee to 4-and-20 blackbirds. Although the pictures generally provide literal depictions of the action, they have a sophistication that plays oddly against the simple language of the texts. The selection has its quirks, too: As I was going to St. Ives, has, perhaps wisely, been left out but not the lesser known, rather startling Charley Barley, butter and eggs, / Sold his wife for 3 duck eggs . . . . Parents uncomfortable or bored with the more child-friendly illustrations in such standbys as Rosemary Wells' My Very First Mother Goose (1996) and its many sequels might find this a more intriguing choice for sharing with their young offspring. Good to pair with Iona Opie's Mother Goose's Little Treasures, illustrated by Wells, reviewed on p.117. Peters, John