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

by Jane Yolen, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Angela Matteson (Illustrator)

Overview

Fourteen Mother-Goose rhymes enjoyed by generations of children are creatively presented as "poem pairs"—with a twist!—in this playful poetry picture book.

Mother Goose has a few secrets tucked in her feathers! Did you know that the shoe loved the Old Woman and her many children? And that the three blind mice weren’t actually blind, only near-sighted? Or that Humpty Dumpty fell when skateboarding on a wall?
 
Featuring wildly different voices and perspectives, this terrific read-aloud features with stunning illustrations and hilarious details. The book includes the original Mother Goose rhymes, endnotes that briefly describe their history, and an introduction that invites readers to imagine their own poems from unusual perspectives and "create magic."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635928457
Publisher:	Astra Publishing House
Publication date:	11/16/2021
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	40 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 9 Years

About the Author

Jane Yolen has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Golden Kite Award, two Christopher Medals, the Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota, and the Regina Medal for her body of work. She lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts, and St. Andrews, Scotland. janeyolen.com

Rebecca Kai Dotlich is the author of many poetry and picture books, including Lemonade Sun; One Day, The End. ; and The Knowing Book. She gives presentations and poetry workshops to students, teachers, librarians, and writers across the country. She lives near Indianapolis, Indiana. rebeccakaidotlich.com

Angela Matteson is a children's book illustrator and a designer of greeting cards and gift packaging. Her paintings have been shown in galleries, both locally and nationally. This is her first picture book. She lives in Columbus, Ohio. angelamatteson.com

Editorial Reviews

This quirky Mother Goose book turns convention on its head. Each of the 14 selections contemporizes a traditional rhyme and pairs it with a rebuttal or an aside by a grumpy protagonist... the artwork is lively and fanciful...”—Kirkus Reviews

"Whimsical, cartoonish acrylic-and-pencil illustrations incorporate playful details and decorative page embellishments, blending classic scenarios and contemporary settings and elements... a playful addition to any poetry section."—Booklist

"The imaginative poems can tickle the funny bone... an excellent choice for writing workshops and classroom prompts."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

09/01/2016
Gr 2–4—A nice size for group read-alouds, this collection is similar to Yolen and Dotlich's first book of twists on nursery rhymes, Grumbles from the Forest. Here, the townsfolk have their say. The original rhymes are found in the endpapers and include many that are well known. There are 14 rhymes in all, with each poet writing one poem per nursery rhyme—with the exception of the last poem, "Three Blind Mice," a collaboration. At the book's beginning there is a "Dear Reader" letter that explains perspective and invites readers to create their own verses. The imaginative poems can tickle the funny bone: Yolen creates a Humpty Dumpty who excels as the class clown and is accident-prone, while Dotlich makes the entire Dumpty family out to be a bunch of "mischievous eggs" who are often in a scrape because they are "always in places/they shouldn't be." Many of Matteson's illustrations are spreads that use soft pastel colors and full-faced cartoon characters. VERDICT While the artwork in the first anthology was more evocative, the images here are effective but on the cute side. Still, an excellent choice for writing workshops and classroom prompts.—Teresa Pfeifer, The Springfield Renaissance School, MA

School Library Journal

2016-05-18
This quirky Mother Goose book turns convention on its head.Each of the 14 selections contemporizes a traditional rhyme and pairs it with a rebuttal or an aside by a grumpy protagonist. The vegetarian princess in "Sing a Song of Sixpence" waxes poetic about freeing blackbirds while (inexplicably) dealing with "four-and-twenty cantaloupes / stashed inside my jeans." Her grumpy maid, however, launches into an unwieldy tirade about avian-infested pies. "A bloke poked his head out the window. / King wants another pie! he cried. / I mumbled a few choice words, I did. / Who, I ask you, in their right mind / bakes pies of birds?" The double-page format facilitates the flow from reworked verse to denouement. Spoon is pleased with her rescue from fiddling cats and moon-leaping cows, and Plum rants against Jack Horner's skewering thumb. Matteson's acrylic-and-colored-pencil illustrations on wood board smoothly incorporate racial diversity; Jack Horner is black, and King Cole and his daughter have light-brown skin and kinky hair. The artwork is lively and fanciful—Humpty rides a skateboard, and Miss Muffet's plotting spider strums a banjo. However, the collection is in want of an audience. Rather than poems clearly written for children, this latest Yolen/Dotlich collaboration (Grumbles from the Forest, 2013) comes across as a creative-writing exercise. The original nursery rhymes and historical notes are appended (to the detriment of the new rhymes). An inventive miss. (Picture book. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews