I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild's Pocket Book - Softcover

"I saw Esau kissing Kate, / The fact is we all three saw; / For I saw him, / And he saw me, / And she saw I saw Esau." So goes the schoolyard chant that graces this brilliant collection with its title. This "Schoolchild's Pocket Book," edited by lore and literature legends Iona and Peter Opie and gleefully illustrated by Maurice Sendak, definitely belongs on every child's shelf, right next to Mother Goose nursery rhymes and Grimms' fairy tales. I Saw Esau was first published in Great Britain in 1947, but it is vibrantly alive today as a glorious, whimsical collection of more than 170 schoolyard rhymes, ranging from insults and riddles to tongue twisters, jeers, and jump-rope rhymes--"clearly not rhymes that a grandmother might sing to a grandchild on her knee," writes Iona Opie in her introduction. We adore this sturdy, beautifully designed, pocket-sized book of funny, sometimes twisted, but always perfectly illustrated morsels of schoolyard tradition and history. (Ages 4 to 8, and all other ages, too)

Iona and Peter Opie were married in 1943 and worked together for nearly forty years, studying and writing about children’s lore and literature until Peter’s death in 1982. Among their collaborations is The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. Iona Opie lives in England.

Maurice Sendak has created texts and illustrations for more than seventy books, which have sold millions of copies around the world. He has won numerous awards, including a Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award for his body of work. He lives in New England.