Pussycat Pussycat: and other Rhymes (My Very First Mother Goose) - Hardcover

PreS--These two board-book spin-offs each present eight rhymes selected from Opie's My Very First Mother Goose (Candlewick, 1996). The smaller format with colored pages is congenial, though the reduction of the art and the elimination of details from the much larger volume sometimes create a sense of vagueness about the characters or events in the rhymes. Overall, though, Wells's cheerful animal characters and domestic scenes will appeal to children in spite of small losses in clarity. And if the pictures no longer illuminate some of the rhymes so generously, the lilt of the language has accounted for their abiding appeal anyway.

Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston

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