This program is dedicated to Charles Perreault, a French lawyer, poet, and storyteller who wrote a collection of folktales in the late 17th century.

This picture of an old woman telling stories first appeared on the frontispiece of his book.

The sign in the background reads Contes Dema Mere Loye.

In 1729, when the book was translated into English, the sign was changed to read Mother Goose's Tales.

This inscription on Perreault's book is considered the first important reference to the fabled old woman.

♪ Oh I can't believe ♪ ♪ in everything I read.

♪ ♪ Little boy blue.

♪ ♪ A lady with a shoe and a dish.

♪ ♪ Run off with a spoon.

♪ ♪ The hickory dickory dock.

♪ ♪ A scholar his way to school.

♪ ♪ And I like a cow jump over the moon.

♪ ♪ Dad> Oh, let's play with some feet.

>> It's difficult to know what to say to babies.

It's hard to remember what you were thinking when you were that age.

It's usually easy, however, to recall some of the silly rhymes that adults always use to try to make you laugh.

D> But this little piggy went to the market.

This little piggy stayed home.

And this little thing had roast beef.

And this little piggy had none.

And this little piggy.

went we we we we we we we All the way home.

(laughs) >> Americans call these familiar verses Mother goose rhymes.

People in England refer to them as nursery rhymes.

No one is sure who composed the first one or where it was said, or when.

All> Patty cake Patty cake Bakers man Bake me a cake as fast as you can most of these simple rhymes have been passed from one generation to the next by word of mouth.

These verses are among the first things that any baby hears from mother and father, grandparents and friends.

The musical quality of the words teaches children about rhythm.

Babies often nod their heads or rock their bodies back and forth in time to the verse.

All> Throw it in the pan (indiscernible) ...for baby and me Girl #1> Hickory dickory dock.

The mouse went up to clock.

And down he ran.

And.... Hickory dickory dock.

The mouse ran up the clock.

The clock struck one and down he ran, Hickory dickory dock.

>> Many kids know Mother goose rhymes.

Long before they know what all the words mean.

Apparently the pure poetry alone.

The unusual arrangement of sounds is enough to entertain a child.

Both> Sing a song of sixpence >> Sound patterns, are appreciated almost instinctively.

A small child enjoys the hissing sound of Sing a Song of Sixpence without knowing that adults call that repeated set of sounds.

Alliteration.

(indiscernible) Dad> Baa baa baa black sheep have you any wool?

Yes, sir.

Yes sir.

>> Likewise, children appreciate baa baa black sheep without knowing that the baa baa sounds are referred to as onomatopoeia.

Dad> ...for the little boy that lives down the lane.

Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool?

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Three bags full.

>> In her book titled, "A Parent's Guide to Children's Reading."

Nancy Lyric points out that babies need to hear a lot of speaking to encourage development of their own language skills.

She recommends that early playing include lots of talk and suggest nursery rhymes and jingles, as well as spontaneous conversation.

She suggests if you've forgotten the old rhymes, get a Mother Goose Book and brush up on your favorites.

There are many Mother Goose books to choose from, and certainly there's no one best collection.

Some are old and rare.

The oldest known book of nursery rhymes is "Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book", which was published in 1744, in London by a woman named Mary Cooper.

Later in the 18th century, a London publisher named John Newbery printed a collection of children's rhymes, which he titled Mother Goose's Melody, or sonnets for the cradle.

Newbery probably took the name Mother Goose from the frontispiece of Charles Perreault's popular collection of French folktales.

No one knows who put together Mother Goose's Melody, but Oliver Goldsmith worked for Newbery for several years, and many scholars give him credit for editing the work included in Mother Goose's Melody were such familiar ditties as seesaw, Margery Daw Jack and Jill, and Hey Diddle Diddle Hey Diddle Diddle, which appears to be a simple nonsense rhyme, is an excellent example of a rhyme that has been carefully analyzed for possible meanings.

In the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.

Iona and Peter Opie call Hey Diddle Diddle, probably the best no nonsense verse in the language, but quickly add that a considerable amount of nonsense has been written about it.

They list six different ways that people have interpreted the verse.

William and Ceil Baring-Gould, who assembled The Annotated Mother Goose in the early 1960s, list a couple more interpretations.

But when it comes to sharing the rhymes with children, it really makes no difference if the cat and the fiddle were Catherine of Aragon, who was called Caterine la Fidel, or Queen Elizabeth the First, who supposedly played with her cabinet ministers the way a cat plays with mice.

Mother Goose made her first documented appearance in print in the United States sometime before 1787.

In Boston, a publisher named Isaiah Thomas printed copies of Newbery's book in so-called pirated editions.

There's also some speculation about Mother Goose being an actual woman who lived in America in the 17th century.

One of her distant descendants, John Fleet Elliott, claimed that Elizabeth Foster Goose, or Virgin Goose of Boston, Massachusetts, was the source of the famous rhymes.

Most scholars, including the Opie's, now dis-count Elliott's claims.

Different rhymes have very different origins.

And Mother Goose is just an amusing mythological figure, apparently with ancient French origins.

Nonetheless, publishers are always ready to claim that their collection is the definitive anthology.

The only True Mother Goose Melodies was published in Boston in the 19th century.

Rand McNally still prints this volume, called The Real Mother Goose, with illustrations by Blanche Fisher.

Wright.

It contains over 300 different verses, and all the editions since 1965 have included an introduction by May Hill Arbuthnot, who points out that there is some humor in the illustrations, but for the most part they are sober interpretations of the verses.

Arbuthnot feels this is a boon to the young child, because the pictures actually furnish him with clues to the meanings of the words.

Not all old illustrations are so sober.

This is Arthur Rackham version of Hey Diddle Diddle.

Every character seems to glow with wild energy.

Rackham's anthology is titled Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, and it was first published in 1913.

It includes some silhouette illustrations, some pen and ink drawings, and several color plates.

Randolph Caldecott's lively illustrations are even older yet.

His drawings for Hey Diddle Diddle were first published in 1882, an a picture book which also included an illustrated version of Baby Bunting.

Caldecott's genius is especially evident in his handling of The Dish Who Ran Away With he Spoon?

Caldecott's work, often printed in brown ink, actually extends the rhyme into completely new worlds.

This final drawing, with the broken dish and the spoon being led away by a parental knife and fork, adds a disturbing sadness to the nonsense of the words.

Caldecott's treatment of nursery rhymes, and his picture books is often considered his most important contribution to the art of illustration.

Many of the books originally included only one rhyme, like Sing a Song of Sixpence, in which the king and queen are both still children.

L Leslie Brook, another British illustrator who was undoubtedly influenced by Caldecott's work, assembled a collection of verses in a book called Ring of Roses, with numerous drawings in color and black and white.

His fat pink pigs are especially memorable when one little pig has roast beef, Brooke's drawing points out all the ludicrous aspects of the scene.

Like Caldecott, L Leslie Brooke used his illustrations to extend and illuminate the silly world of the rhymes.

Most Mother Goose books are anthologies featuring an eclectic sampling of rhymes.

The Opie's point out that the early anthologies have had a profound effect.

They say, The Opie's themselves have put together several collections.

The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, first published in 1951, includes some 550 rhymes, as well as extensive footnotes about various interesting aspects of the verses.

The Opie's also assembled the Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book, published in 1955.

It is perhaps the largest collection ever printed, including some 800 rhymes and ditties.

The illustrations in the book are from chapbooks and toy books of the 18th and early 19th centuries, a time when Thomas Buick and other artists created a golden age of wood engraving.

The Opie's explained that they've collected so many rhymes to allow the reader to select or to recall favorites.

They say...

Many artists have tried to capture the elusive spirit of Mother Goose on paper for various illustrated anthologies.

In 1942, Stepanovich Rojankovsky drew Mother Goose this way for his collection The Tall Book of Mother Goose, which is indeed a long, tall book the children can hold easily.

Rojankovsky drawings feature realistic children, like this wide eyed Miss Muffet.

His illustrations are bright and clever, and his Humpty Dumpty is especially interesting when one remembers what Hitler was doing in the early 1940s.

At the time Rojankovsky emigrated to the United States In 1965.

Brian Wildsmith's Mother Goose was published.

It features large, brightly colored illustrations for many different rhymes.

Wildsmith has been criticized for making the pictures so large that they tend to overpower the verses at the bottom of the page, but their size makes them well suited for sharing with a group of children.

His Humpty Dumpty is a harlequin like egg who's smirking a bit as he sits on the wall.

In 1944, Tasha Tudor drew Humpty Dumpty as a tiny Germanic soldier frightened by a mouse.

Her anthology of 77 verses is called simply Mother Goose.

Her work received some sharp criticism from illustrator Maurice Sendak, who wrote an essay called Mother Goose's Garnishing.

In 1965, Sendak said, Sendak also berated Joan Walsh Angland, who created a Mother Goose ABC book in 1960 titled In a Pumpkin Shell.

Sendak felt In that same essay, Sendak also criticized Marguerite De Angeli's Book of Nursery and Mother Goose Rhymes, which was named a Caldecott Honor Book in 1954.

Her Mother Goose is an old woman riding on a white bird.

Sendak wasn't totally negative about all attempts to illustrate Mother Goose, however.

He emphatically endorsed Caldecott' work and stated that Sendak has also illustrated some nursery rhymes himself, including this 1965 work entitled Hector Protector, and as I Went Over the Water.

Like Caldecott, Sendak concentrates on a specific rhyme or two rather than on a whole anthology.

He tries to make his pictures extend and illuminate the simple verses.

Other illustrators have also created books which feature just one rhyme.

Paul Gail Doane drew a complete set of illustrations for Old Mother Hubbard and Her Dog in 1960.

He envisions the rhyme in an 18th century setting.

Evaline Ness illustrated that same rhyme for a book in 1972.

In her version, Old Mother Hubbard and the various merchants are much more modern.

Children may be interested in comparing the different versions, and can learn to make value judgments by picking a favorite.

Adults can help by showing how many different books are available.

Very young children may enjoy most those books which feature only one rhyme because of the abundant illustrations.

Susan Jeffers illustrated the rhyme of Three Jovial Huntsmen for this book, published in 1973.

Her intricate pen and ink drawings are a puzzle of sorts.

Animals are hidden throughout many of the pictures, and although the three jovial huntsmen don't see the critters, attentive young readers won't have any trouble spotting them.

Lillian Obbligato illustrated this single rhyme book based on the Three Little Kittens.

These little cats are contemporary with very expressive faces.

The mother cat is stern.

Notice that she's making mince mice pie.

Obbligato follows in the Caldecott tradition of illustrating one rhyme in detail, extending and illuminating the meaning of the words.

Peter Spier first turned his talents to illustrating nursery rhymes in 1967, when he published London Bridge Is Falling Down.

A highly detailed and fascinating study of London in the 18th century.

He pictures various ways that the bridge might be rebuilt, and, in the colorful but realistic style, shows how people lived and worked on the famous bridge before it was torn down to market.

To Market!

To Market!

is a collection of various nursery rhymes that are all connected to a complicated market scene in an American town in the early 19th century.

In 1968, Spier created another thematic collection of verses in Hurrah, We're Outward Bound, which links together a group of rhymes, all relating to a sailing voyage in the 19th century.

Then in 1969, Spier assembled yet another thematic collection of rhymes for his book called And So My Garden Grows.

The pictures in this one are all set in Italy again in the 19th century.

Other artists have also compiled thematic collections.

In 1972, Nonie Howe Grogan put together a slim volume called One I Love, Two I Love Another Loving Mother Goose rhymes.

She includes some familiar verses by Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater and Georgie Porgie.

Pudding and pie, as well as some less common ones like Sukey, You shall be My Wife and Ickle okle blue bockle fishes in the sea.

Lenore Blackwood assembled a group of nursery rhymes, all of which feature a feline theme.

Her husband Eric added some hilarious illustrations, and the result was mittens for kittens and other rhymes about cats.

The Blegvads also put together another very funny collection with a porcine theme.

It's titled This Little Pig-a-Wig and Other Rhymes about pigs.

Some of the rhymes are predictable, like to market, to market, to buy a fat pig.

But many are unexpected.

Like my Uncle Jehoshaphat Sukey, you shall be.

My wife is in this collection too.

As is grandfa Grig had a pig.

Which brings us to Wallace Tripp and his extraordinary book of pictures and poems titled Grandfa Grig Had a Pig and Other Rhymes Without Reason from Mother Goose.

It's an anthology, a group of unrelated poems held together by an outstanding set of clever illustrations featuring all kinds of animal characters.

Some of the illustrations are small, like Little Miss Muffet, who's a bunny about to be tapped on the shoulder.

Other pictures are large, like this.

Sing a song of Sixpence.

Readers will soon notice that Tripp adds some sly comments, and many of the pictures in cartoon bubbles.

Tripp's drawings are also peppered with unexpected subplots, hilarious expressions, plenty of silly details, and even some famous faces.

The British artist Helen Oxenberry has illustrated an unusual collection of children's rhymes, chosen by Brian Alderson for this book, titled Cakes and Custard.

They've even included some violent rhymes, which are often suppressed ones like the barber shaved a mason, as I suppose, cut off his nose and pop it in the basin.

Oxenberry also uses some starkly realistic and modern images, like this woman in curlers watching TV.

In a brief preface, Alderson points out He's right, but imaginative illustrations and attractive presentation can revive a dying rhyme or uncover a forgotten one.

This is Mitchell Miller's book, titled One Misty Moisty Morning Rhymes from Mother Goose.

His soft and subtle pencil drawings illuminate a set of rare verses, like There was a rat for want of stairs went down a rope to say his prayers.

This weird picture is Miller's illustration for a somewhat obscure rhyme which starts I do not like the doctor fell.

The strange bird like creature with the human head seems to be saying the words to the man with the book.

The unusual drawing may provoke some speculation about the mysterious meaning of the words.

Of course, the mystery and the total nonsense of some rhymes has been criticized.

Why bother young minds with pointless jingles?

Other critics have objected to the violence in some verses.

Indeed, the very first rhyme in that first book, Tommy Thumb's Pretty Songbook, with Lady Bird, Lady Bird Fly Away Home, which ends with an image of burning children.

Some critics think such images may be frightening.

Others say that the rhymes are hopelessly outdated, that the vocabulary is archaic and confusing.

Simple Simon meets a pieman, but kids today may have trouble finding one.

And consider Little Miss Muffet.

How many adults can be sure they know exactly what a tuffet is?

This little miss is from Raymond Briggs book, The Mother Goose Treasury, an extensive anthology brightened with a lively mixture of styles and artistic media.

Another anthology is the Mother Goose book, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen.

They have gathered similar rhymes and placed them on thematic pages.

All the verses on these pages, for instance, deal with eating and various characters, like little Tommy Tucker, who sings for his supper, and Polly, who puts the kettle on, and Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat, who lick the platter clean.

Other pages feature unusual houses and little girls, and various other topics.

Tim and Greg Hildebrandt illustrated another anthology in 1972, one titled Mother Goose A Treasury of Best Loved Rhymes, edited by Watty Piper.

Their characters are consistently sweet and rosy cheeked, but theirs is one of a few Mother Goose books which include black children and kids from other minority groups.

There are no human characters in the Sesame Street Mother Goose, which features Jim Henson's Muppets and a lot of pop up paper gimmicks.

The rhymes in this anthology are mostly traditional and familiar.

The characters may be too familiar.

For example, Jack and Jill are obviously Bert and Ernie dressed in silly costumes, and the puppets' personalities might interfere with a child's enjoyment of the rhymes.

Take a look at Nicola Bayley's Book of Nursery Rhymes, first published in 1975.

Her style is elaborate and vivid, often, as with her treatment of Old Mother Hubbard.

Her pictures are tiny and require careful scrutiny.

Her striking illustrations make this another book that adults and older children may appreciate.

Likewise, a slightly older audience may enjoy Jack Kent's Merry Mother Goose with its cartoon rhymes that capitalize on the humorous potential of the rhymes.

It's not often that Old King Cole is pictured with his pipe and bowl blowing bubbles.

Kent also provides some unusual interpretations, like this old woman who lived in a shoe.

So does everyone else in her neighborhood.

And when Little Miss Muffet is scared off her tuffet, Jack Kent shows that it was all a practical joke.

In 1967, Charles Addams, a macabre cartoonist from The New Yorker, created a very unusual anthology in the Charles Addams' Mother Goose.

He leaves the familiar rhymes alone, but provides outrageous and bizarre pictorial interpretations.

For example, this American Gothic farmer's wife uses an electric knife to do her cutting.

So far, we've seen three basic kinds of Mother Goose books.

First, anthologies.

The most common kind of rhyme collections.

Second single rhyme books like those of Randolph Caldecott.

And third thematic collections, that present, a group of rhymes related by a common theme.

There is a fourth kind of Mother Goose book, the variant.

Variants include books like The Rooster Crows by Maud and Miska Petersham which won the Caldecott Medal in 1946.

It includes many traditional rhymes like This Little Pig and Little Jack Horner, along with some verses which originated in America.

Some like How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck are so American that they're not included even in the Opie's anthologies.

The Rooster Crows can remind you of some important rhymes which you may have temporarily forgotten, like Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.

Ray Wood also put together a collection of New World variants in his book The American Mother Goose, illustrated by Ed Hargis.

It likewise includes such noteworthy American originals as Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let the Mosquitoes Bite.

There are some international variants, too.

It's raining, said John Twaining, for instance, It's a collection of Danish nursery rhymes translated and illustrated by N.M. Bodecker.

Some of the rhymes are completely foreign, like Little Miss Price rode with her mice over the ice.

While others are oddly familiar.

Like my little dad had five little piggies.

In 1971, a book called Rimes De La Mere Oie appeared tall and thin like (indiscernible) book.

It was designed and illustrated by Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser and Barry Zaid.

It featured traditional Mother Goose rhymes, translated from English into French by Ormonde De Kay Jr, who cleverly tried to preserve the original meters and rhyme schemes.

So Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater became Pierre Pierre buveur de biere, or Pierre Pierre Drinker of Beer, who put his wife in a beer bottle.

There's really no limit to the kinds of possible variants.

John W Ivimey created a single rhyme variant in his classic book, called The Complete Version of Three Blind Mice, illustrated by Walton Corbould and first published in 1904.

Ivimey expanded the simple rhyme of the Three Blind Mice into a long narrative by adding 12 more verses in the same style, starting with three small mice and ending with three proud mice.

In this variant, they are blind only temporarily.

The Christian Mother Goose book is an anthology of variants created by Marjorie Ainsborough Decker and illustrated by her and Glen Fay Hammond in 1978.

Ms Decker includes some original verses like Jesus' Fishy Bank, but she primarily has rewritten well-known verses to conform to a religious viewpoint.

For example, Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet thanking Jesus for curds and whey.

Then came a big spider and sat down beside her to listen to Miss Muffet pray.

The saccharin sweet drawings might be described most kindly as amateurish.

The didactic messages seem only to destroy the beauty of the traditional verse.

Time alone will determine which nursery rhymes survive.

There obviously is no complete set of Mother Goose rhymes, and new ones may appear at any time.

Most of the traditional rhymes are thought to have originated in the 16th, 17th, and most frequently the 18th centuries.

Most of the verses were apparently made by adults for adults.

They were popular songs, ballads, proverbs, riddles, religious and political satires.

In the future, new rhymes may come from the world of advertising.

Commercial jingles are much like old rhymes.

Short, catchy, anonymous and oft repeated.

Hold the pickles.

>> Hold the lettuce especially so it won't upset us.

All we ask is that you let us serve it your way.

Serve it your way.

>> But the old rhymes will not be forgotten.

They've lasted because they're proven effective.

Rockabye baby in the treetop.

When the wind blows the cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks.

The cradle will fall.

And down will come baby cradle and all.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪