"Exuding tremendous pick-me-up appeal, this classic collection also shares insights into the meaning of all those nursery rhymes that remain with us for a lifetime."
October 2024 Book of the Month
Reinterpreted by historian and biographer Robert Lacey and contemporary illustrator Ben Coppin, this classic work presents eighty nursery rhymes illustrated by Claud Lovat Fraser, a notable early-twentieth-century artist and designer.
Alongside presenting the rhymes — many widely known, others more obscure to today’s reader — in such glorious style, the book also reveals fascinating insights into their lesser-known facets. As Lacey shares in his introduction, not only were nursery rhymes designed to entertain children as “little odes to joy — expressing children’s earliest pleasure in the sparky delights of language, living and learning”, but many also tackled “grim adult themes”, reflecting contemporaneous social and political context, and revealing begone ways of life.
This comes to light in a chapter devoted to exploring meanings of the rhymes. Humpty Dumpty, for example — which actually makes no mention of an egg! — relates to a cannon that couldn’t be repaired after falling off a wall during the English Civil War.
All that considered, this nostalgia-sparking book will surely delight a broad range of readers — from aficionados of illustration, design, and classic children’s literature, to new generations of children. As such, it’s the perfect gift for parents of new-borns to put aside until their little ones are a little older, and a beautiful tome for book-lovers to treasure.
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