The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster by David Conway and Melanie Williamson
| The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster by David Conway and Melanie Williamson | |
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| Category: For Sharing | |
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Reviewer: Keith Dudhnath
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| Summary: A great twist on the traditional nursery rhymes sees Little Miss Muffet travelling from rhyme to rhyme trying to get away from the spider. Children will love the joke, and Melanie Williamson's illustrations are superb. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 32 | Date: January 2010 |
| Publisher: Hodder Children's Books | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0340945087 | |
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Little Miss Muffet is fed up of being constantly scared by a spider, so she ups sticks and heads for a different page of the book, to see if the characters of another nursery rhyme will let her join in. She tries one rhyme after another, but things never quite work to plan. Will she find a nursery rhyme that suits her to a T?
I do like a bit of romantic irony, and The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster takes the joke and runs with it well. It's appropriately pitched at its young audience - they'll immediately get it and love seeing old favourites from a fresh new angle. There's a healthy smattering of silliness and humour, which keeps everything ticking along nicely. The vocabulary is punchy and interesting. Any book that uses the words toddled and rumpus is alright by me!
Melanie Williamson's illustrations fit brilliantly with the text. She's got an exciting style that works as wonderfully here as it did in Go To Sleep, Sheep! and Wolf's Magnificent Master Plan. Every page is packed with a fun scene from a nursery rhyme, getting more and more outrageous as Little Miss Muffet works her way through them all.
The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster will sit well on any young child's bookshelf. As soon as they're familiar with nursery rhymes, they'll love seeing them subverted. It's playful, it's silly, it's great. Recommended.
My thanks to the publishers for sending it to Bookbag. We also have a review of the authors' The Great Fairy Tale Disaster.
If you've not lapped up the nursery rhymes in their natural habitat, you'll love Favourite Nursery Rhymes by Brian Wildsmith. When you move on to the subversion, Don't Read This Book! by Jill Lewis and Deborah Allwright and Little Bo Peep's Troublesome Sheep by Cressida Cowell are great fun, just like The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster.
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You can read more book reviews or buy The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster by David Conway and Melanie Williamson at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster by David Conway and Melanie Williamson at Amazon.com.
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