★ Over the Hills and Far Away: A Treasury of
Nursery Rhymes
Collected by Elizabeth Hammill. Candlewick, $21.99 (160p) ISBN
978-0-7636-7729-9
More than 70 illustrators—Ashley Bryan, Eric Carle, Lucy
Cousins, Shirley Hughes, Jon Klassen, Jerry Pinkney, and
many more—interpret 150 nursery rhymes of various global
origins. Cradle songs and rhymes familiar
in the Western world, such as “Hush
Little Baby” (depicted by Don Cadoret
with a rabbit parent and child), inter-
mingle with more obscure selections. A
Tsimshian “laughing song” from the
Pacific Northwest (“The little girl was
born to gather wild roses”) offers hope for a girl’s future (it’s
accompanied by a luminous, rose-filled image by Tsimshian
artist Bill Helin). The careful juxtaposition of the rhymes
highlights both their diversity and cross-cultural commonal-
ities: versions of “Little Miss Muffet” from England,
America, Australia, and Jamaica have the girl being fright-
ened by a spider, grasshopper, wombat, and “bredda Anancy.”
A rich and wonderfully varied addition to the bookshelf of
nursery-rhyme collections. Ages 3–7. (Mar.)
Alaska’s Snow White and Her Seven Sled Dogs
Mindy Dwyer. Sasquatch/Little Bigfoot, $10.99 paper (32p) ISBN
978-1-57061-975-5
In this uneven regional staging of Snow White, the story
unfolds in the icy Alaskan wilderness. Snow White has a
placid doll-like appearance, while the wicked Queen has
sharp, angular features—part Cruella de Vil, part Snow
Miser. As the title reveals, the seven dwarves become a pack
of loyal Huskies, and a lost musher saves Snow White from
being frozen by the vindictive Queen. While there are some
fun elements at play (at one point, the Queen attempts to
feed Snow White poisoned moose jerky), this retelling
quickly becomes convoluted. The Queen is eventually done
in by a pair of magnetized ice skates that, for some reason,
cause her to spin herself into the frigid water below, and the
winter setting never feels particular to Alaska. Ages 4–8.
(Feb.)
Monster Goose Nursery Rhymes
Henry, Josh, and Harrison Herz, illus. by Abigail Larson. Pelican,
$16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-4556-2032-6
Henry Herz and his sons, Josh and Harrison, offer up
supernatural versions of 14 nursery rhymes, including “This
Little Hydra,” “Peter Peter Goblin Eater,” and a cadaverous
twist on “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” (“ ‘Zombie rotten,
quite forgotten,/ How does your graveyard fare?’/ ‘With
skulls and bones for steppingstones,/ It’s enough to raise your
hair.’ ”). Wee Willie Winkie becomes a slinking werewolf
who goes “Looking for tardy children to eat,” while “Little
Witch Muffet” simply tosses the spider into her cauldron.
Larson’s skillfully drafted images feature rich, mossy colors
and angular, eerie beasts that are more charming than truly
scary. While these sprites, ogres, and harpies are certainly fit
for Halloween reading, this distinctive collection deserves to
be enjoyed year round. Ages 5–8. (Feb.)
Chinese Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook
Paul Yee, illus. by Shaoli Wang. Interlink/Crocodile, $25 (162p) ISBN
978-1-56656-993-4
This collection of original stories and adapted Chinese
folklore (a companion to Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple’s
Fairy Tale Feasts and Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts) features
noblemen, peasants, animals, gods, and ghosts in tales that
frequently address themes of greed, poverty, hunger, and
atonement. Each tale, in some fashion,
symbolically incorporates food and con-
cludes with a recipe (congee, green onion
pancakes, and won-ton soup are among the
offerings). Wang’s cartoons, a mix of full-
page illustrations and spot art, evoke
Chinese folk art with bright colors, orna-
mental prints, and naïve figures. In addition to the recipes
and details about cuisine, Yee includes proverbs, information
about the origins of the stories, and brief insights into
Chinese history and culture, making this a collection to feed
the mind and the body. Ages 5–11. (Feb.)
Daydreams for Night
John Southworth, illus. by David Ouimet. Simply Read (IPS, dist.),
$16.95 (48p) ISBN 978-1-927018-17-0
This collection of 13 vignettelike stories from first-time
author Southworth, accompanied by Ouimet’s haunting b&w
illustrations, follows in the tradition of Shaun Tan’s Tales of
Outer Suburbia and Chris Van Allsburg’s The Mysteries of
Harris Burdick. The stories take place in settings and circumstances that are slightly, sometimes disconcertingly, tweaked.
In one, a librarian doesn’t notice when a sunflower blossoms
out of his head; in another, 10-year-old Ester, who sells more
cookies than any other Brownie, retires to her room for three
years after trying to sell cookies to a ghostly individual at a
funeral home (in the full-spread image that follows, Ester
totes a wagon-full of cookies across a great lawn, peering
back at the estate as birds swarm overhead). Each story stands
on its own, yet they are connected through a shared enigmatic quality, offering up intriguing possibilities over explanations. Ages 8–12. (Feb.)
Telling Tales ▲
Fairy tales, nursery rhymes, spooky stories, and more.
