The Real Dada Mother Goose: A Treasury of Complete Nonsense

Praise

Kids who love word games, secret codes or Mad Libs will get a kick out of the latest from Scieszka, the funny, anarchic force behind “The Stinky Cheese Man” and “The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!” Like those books, this is an irreverent, revisionist take on a classic. . . playful experiments will inspire curiosity about the possibilities of language and the vagaries of communication. . . Rothman cleverly combines Blanche Fisher Wright’s 1916 illustrations for “The Real Mother Goose” with her own subversive interventions. Gift this book with a copy of Wright’s (still enchanting more than 100 years later) for the full comp-lit experience.
—The New York Times Book Review

Deconstructed nursery rhymes entertain and delight in this mischievous endeavor. . . . Stand aside, fractured fairy tales; neoist nursery rhymes are the new name of the game. Creativity incarnate.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

In this children’s literature hat trick, Scieszka (the AstroNuts series) and Rothman (Can I Eat That?) mash up a loving spoof of the Blanche Fisher Wright classic, an introduction to Dadaism, and a tribute to Raymond Queneau’s renowned literary experiment Exercises in Style. . . Brains will be thoroughly twisted and tickled by this giddy, handsome celebration of language and logic.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Fans of visual jokes and inspired, goofy wordplay will fall on this transformation of Blanche Fisher Wright’s classic Real Mother Goose with honks of delight.
—Booklist (starred review)

Nobody knows better than Scieszka how to turn a kiddie tale on its head and produce true, gleeful chaos. Now the mind that bought readers Battle Bunny (BCCB 12/13) returns with another exercise in DIY iconoclasm, offering strategies to recast the canon of Western nursery rhymes with more contemporary kid appeal. No treasured verse will be safe again once readers master the following outline for literary mischief.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Since the 1992 publication of The Stinky Cheese Man (rev. 11/92), Scieszka has been upending conventions in children’s literature. Here, he’s back at it, with a Dadaist interpretation of Blanche Fisher Wright’s classic The Real Mother Goose. . . . Encouraging youngsters to create their own riffs on literature, Scieszka includes explanations of many of these linguistic conventions. . . Clever, inventive fun.
—The Horn Book

Nonsense and absurdity take center stage as Jon Scieszka and Julia Rothman turn six evergreen Mother Goose verses upside down and inside out. . . . Rothman inserts her own impish, comical drawings around reproductions of Wright’s work. . . . The Real Dada Mother Goose is a thoroughly entertaining book enhanced by detailed and plentiful backmatter. This handbook for creative mischief is sure to inspire many hours of Dadaist delight.
—BookPage

The dadaism art movement and The Real Mother Goose nursery rhyme collection came on the scene right around the same time in the early 1900s. Now, more than a century later, their themes collide in raucous experimentations with the nursery rhyme form. Master of mischief Jon Scieszka wreaks hilarious havoc with a sweet classic, producing one of the most thoroughly original works of the year.
—NPR

Each cheerfully mangled Scieszka poem comes with an equally cheerfully tampered-with illustration by Ms. Rothman, who cuts and pastes and adds her own fillips to Wright’s pictures. The result of all this mischief is a highly entertaining book for children ages 6-9 who are old enough to be conversant with the rhymes and young enough to be tickled by the affectionate irreverence.
—The Wall Street Journal

In ‘The Real Dada Mother Goose,’ writer Jon Scieszka and illustrator Julia Rothman riff mischievously on six traditional nursery rhymes.
—The Wall Street Journal

If you like upside down nursery rhymes, this is the book for you! Jon Scieszka outdoes himself with a collection of truly strange and wonderful takes on classic nursery rhymes. Paired with Julia Rothman’s fantastic illustrations, this is a great addition to any library.
—Book Riot

A book that defies description. . . . I firmly believe that the audience for this book will find it without difficulty. As smart as it is funny, this is the Mother Goose book we didn’t know we’d been waiting for all this time.
—A Fuse #8 Production