Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 09/01/2022 *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. The story of “Humpty Dumpty” kicks things off, first with hilariously censored and expanded renditions, a “postcard from camp” version, a reading in Morse code, and then telephone-style translations from English to Finnish to Zulu to Latin to Samoan and then back to a barely recognizable: “Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. / Humpty Damage Damage. / King Humpty finds the horse, the glasses.” Scieszka and Rothman, in the guise of “Dada Geese,” proceed to go on to work different but similarly wild changes on “Jack Be Nimble” and four other nursery rhymes with mash-up pictures that incorporate clippings from the original illustrations with scissors-wielding geese, random reptiles, and other additions tumbled together. Then, to follow up, likewise fulsome (if more coherent) back notes not only unpack all of the tricks, techniques, and linguistic tomfoolery but also include histories of Wright, Mother Goose, and even copyright law—all to goose readers into taking their own chosen texts or images on similarly freewheeling rides. - Copyright 2022 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 10/28/2022 K-Gr 3—The off-kilter table of contents clues readers in to a less-than-conventional approach as Scieszka "play[s] around" with familiar characters and rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty, Jack Be Nimble, Old Mother Hubbard, Hey Diddle Diddle, Hickory Dickory Dock, and Twinkle Twinkle. Each of them is followed by several variations, including "censored" versions, a (failed) multiple choice test, a comic strip, haiku, Spoonerism, a recipe, a news report, and more. At the end, readers are invited to participate: "One, two, buckle my shoe./ Now YOU make these old rhymes new." Back matter includes note on Egyptian hieroglyphs, various codes, anagrams, and puzzles, Mother Goose history, and copyright; Rothman created the art for the book using collage and Blanche Fisher Wright illustrations. As the Little Dog says in the news report, "It was crazy, I just had to laugh." VERDICT Come for Scieszka; stay if you have readers with a particular sense of humor, or need silly story times and curriculum tie-ins.—Jenny Arch - Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.