The Real Dada Mother Goose: A Treasury of Complete Nonsense
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this book.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Jon Scieszka's The Real Dada Mother Goose is hard to categorize but a lot of fun. As it claims, it's "a treasury of complete nonsense," and an exercise in finding new ways to be really silly. But in the course of doing those things, kids will also learn about the Dada art movement and its fondness for inspired nonsense. Silly transformations of nursery rhymes are a launching pad for learning about crossword puzzles, codes (from Egyptian hieroglyphics to Morse code, reverse alphabet to rebus and beyond), plus an intriguing use of computer translation to play a version of Telephone, in which "All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again" passes through Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Latin, reemerging as "All horses are kings, and all men are kings; I can't meddle with Humpty." There's a lot to explore here, and endless possibilities for having fun with what you might find.
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What's the Story?
THE REAL DADA MOTHER GOOSE uses Blanche Fisher Wright's beloved 1916 classic The Real Mother Goose as a launchpad for all kinds of inspired madness with a method. Starting from the traditional versions of, say, "Humpty Dumpty" or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," the narrator runs them through assorted transformations like word substitution, Morse code, anagrams. Or using a lot of similes. Or translating it to Esperanto. Making it a comic strip or a book report or a crossword puzzle. There's a lot of information in the notes at the end, from the history of Mother Goose and the Dada movement to details on the codes, ciphers, and language, and where to learn more.
Is It Any Good?
You think you're being silly, but working your way through Jon Scieszka's collection of fractured nursery rhymes, you'll learn quite a lot. The Real Dada Mother Goose invites you to explore what happens when you change things up a bit in well-known verses, whether you choose to encode them in Egyptian hieroglyphics or tell their tale in a book report. Julia Rothman's colorful, whimsical illustrations transform the classic 1916 originals to draw readers young and old into the fun, offering endless possibilities for further exploration.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how, as we see in The Real Dada Mother Goose, there are lots of different ways to tell a story. Take a story you know and love, change how it's told -- like making a comic strip out of the story in a book. Does the story change in the process? How?
Do you like using codes and ciphers to send messages? What are your favorites? Who do you exchanges messages with?
Do you like new and different versions of your favorite tales, rhymes, and songs, or do you prefer to stick to the originals?
Book Details
- Author: Jon Scieszka
- Illustrator: Julia Rothman
- Genre: Humor
- Character Strengths: Curiosity
- Book type: Non-Fiction
- Publisher: Candlewick Press
- Publication date: October 5, 2022
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 7 - 12
- Number of pages: 80
- Available on: Hardback
- Award: Common Sense Selection
- Last updated: December 13, 2022
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