Product Description

Every day, children the world over sing, shout, and celebrate Mother Goose rhymes. And now there's a new reason to cheer: Nina Crews has added her own remarkable, jazzy style of illustration to a collection of forty-one favorite verses. Whether it's Jack jumping over a candlestick (atop a cupcake), Georgie Porgie kissing the girls (at the playground), or a fine lady riding a white horse (on the carousel), this exuberant treasury is sure to be read and enjoyed over and over again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155050 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-01
• Released on: 2003-12-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 64 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780060515737
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Booklist
*Starred Review* PreS. Nina Crews' clear, beautiful color photographs and computer manipulations bring children close-up to people like them. In this modern Mother Goose, she uses computer tools to combine photos of joyful kids in her Brooklyn neighborhood with all kinds of scenarios, realistic and wild. In "Hey diddle diddle!" a brooding cat holding a violin watches a boy running on the sidewalk, while a silver spoon looms over a wooden fence and a cow walks in the air above a full moon. In contrast, the illustration for "Pat-a-Cake" is homey and real: two girls clap hands in a front of a bakery window. The child's sense of being small in a world of giants is beautifully captured in the double-page spread of tiny kids jumping in a giant shoe. Realism, of course, has never been part of the Mother Goose nonsense drama, but preschoolers will enjoy seeing kids like themselves in pictures that make the familiar rhymes part of imaginative fun on the city sidewalk, where girls and boys come out to ride their scooters and bikes, play ball, and dream. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Nina Crews drew inspiration from her Brooklyn neighborhood in creating the artwork for The Neighborhood Mother Goose. Nina's best-selling titles include One Hot Summer Day (Sesame Street Parents "Kid Hits" selection) and Snowball (a CCBC choice). Twice her acclaimed works have been selected as "Best of the Best" books of the year by the Chicago Public Library.

Nina Crews grew up in New York City. After graduating from Yale University in 1985, she worked in commercial animation production and contributed illustrations to magazines, including the Village Voice and Parenting.

In her own words....

"I look back to move forward on a new children's book. I try to remember a much younger me and recreate some of the things that delighted me then. These pleasures were often quite simple, perhaps the shape or taste of something or the colors that it evoked-and everything was set against a noisy, busy, city backdrop.

"I was raised in New York City. I think I've always loved it. There may have been more tall buildings than trees, but I enjoyed the city and all its variety. The people, the neighborhoods, all of the city's quirkiness were endlessly exciting.

"I started taking pictures at an early age, and the city was my first subject. I grew up in a family of artists and saw the children's-book business firsthand. My parents, Donald Crews and Ann Jonas, always encouraged my sister and me in all our art projects. I had wellrounded art training in high school but became more focused on photography in college. Since then I have been working in commercial animation production and doing freelance photo-collage illustration.

"I love making collages. Some of my favorite artists—Romare Bearden, Hannah Hoch, and Man Ray—combined photography and collage. Collage allows me to use photography playfully and to tell a story on many levels.

"I enjoy photographing children. The interaction always adds something to the project; their performances always give me new ideas. I try to keep the photography session as loose as possible. Collaging the images allows me a great deal of freedom. Basically, almost anything can happen.

"Writing the text is another kind of challenge. I try to find a good balance between the written story and the visual story. Each one should help the other. Picture books are the combination of two forms of poetry, written and visual, and their flow should be musical. I find myself reading a lot of poetry while I work on ideas.

"As a child I loved books and I loved to look. The more there was to see in any one image, the better. I also loved books that were set in city places. I hope that a new generation will get these same pleasures from my books."

Customer Reviews

The Best Goose
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.

Modernizing Mother Goose
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!

Making nursery rhymes relevant in my 21st-century classroom
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.