The Horn Book Guide

LITERATURE

Yolen, Jane , Dotlich, Rebecca Kai

Grumbles from the Town: Mother-Goose Voices with a Twist

40 pp. | Boyds/Wordsong | September, 2016 | Trade ISBN 978-1-59078-922-3 $17.95

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Angela Matteson. This poetry book, a collaborative "reinvention" of fourteen Mother Goose nursery rhymes, focuses on alternative points of view. For example, there are two poems for "There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe": one from the perspective of the shoe and the other from that of the old woman's children. While pleasingly illustrated with acrylic and colored pencil on wood board, the interpretations ultimately prove uneven as a whole.

Reviewer: Sheila M. Geraty