Review - Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose

Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose
by Kate Greenaway
Date: 1881
Publisher: Gramercy Publishing Company
Reading level: C
Book type: illustrated poetry collection
Pages: 64
Format: e-book
Source: Open Library

Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) was one of the most popular British book illustrators of the Victorian era. A contemporary of Randolph Caldecott and Walter Crane, she attracted a wide audience in the United States and England, and many of her books were even translated into German and French.

One of Greenaway's early successes was Mother Goose, or the Old Nursery Rhymes, first published in 1881, featuring such favorite poems as "Little Jack Horner," "Little Bo Peep," and "Jack and Jill" paired with whimsical illustrations of children playing in an idyllic countryside. Her enchanting watercolors evoked the urban Victorian reader's nostalgia for the rural life of earlier times and echoed Greenaway's own longing to retreat to a more tranquil setting than her native London.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

Er... no.

This isn't the first Mother Goose collection I've read, but it's probably the weakest one I've seen so far. It was published in 1881, so I'm not expecting it to be modern and unproblematic. However, I honestly don't know if much thought was put into the selection of rhymes included here. There are many I'd never heard before. Some are quite boring. Others are downright disturbing. There's elder abuse (an old man gets hurled down the stairs because he won't say his prayers), mutilation (something about two mothers discussing "chop-a-nose day"), and cruel attitudes toward the poor (the very first poem teaches children to fear the poor, and advocates using violence to drive them out of town).

I usually like Kate Greenaway's artwork, but I'm not a fan of it here. Whether the original drawings got mangled in the reproduction, or they were just weak to begin with, I'm not sure. But there are only a few pictures that I actually like.

Overall, this was a disappointment. For a much better book of Mother Goose rhymes (both for selection and aesthetic), check out Mary Engelbreit's Mother Goose: One Hundred Best-Loved Verses by Mary Engelbreit.

Premise: 2/5
Meter: 2/5
Writing & Editing: 2/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 ladybugs