Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists

by Various Authors, Leonard S. Marcus (Introduction), Chris Duffy (Editor), Jules Feiffer (Illustrator), Roz Chast (Illustrator)

Overview

First Second is very proud to present Nursery Rhyme Comics. Featuring fifty classic nursery rhymes illustrated and interpreted in comics form by fifty of today's preeminent cartoonists and illustrators, this is a groundbreaking new entry in the canon of nursery rhymes treasuries.

From New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast's "There Was a Crooked Man" to Bad Kitty author Nick Bruel's "Three Little Kittens" to First Second's own Gene Yang's "Pat-a-Cake," this is a collection that will put a grin on your face from page one and keep it there.

Each rhyme is one to three pages long, and simply paneled and lettered to ensure that the experience is completely accessible for the youngest of readers. Chock full of engaging full-color artwork and favorite characters (Jack and Jill! Old Mother Hubbard! The Owl and the Pussycat!), this collection will be treasured by children for years to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466805606
Publisher:	First Second
Publication date:	10/11/2011
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
File size:	127 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	3 - 8 Years

About the Author

Nursery Rhyme Comics cartoonists:

Nick Abadzis; Andrew Arnold; Kate Beaton; Vera Brosgol; Nick Bruel; Scott Campbell; Lilli Carre; Roz Chast; JP Coovert; Jordan Crane; Rebecca Dart; Eleanor Davis; Vanessa Davis; Theo Ellsworth; Matt Forsythe; Jules Feiffer; Bob Flynn; Alexis Frederick-Frost; Ben Hatke; Gilbert Hernandez; Jaime Hernandez; Lucy Knisley; David Macaulay; Mark Martin; Patrick McDonnell; Mike Mignola; Tony Millionaire; Tao Nyeu; George O'Connor; Mo Oh; Eric Orchard; Laura Park; Cyril Pedrosa; Lark Pien; Aaron Renier; Dave Roman; Marc Rosenthal; Stan Sakai; Richard Sala; Mark Siegel; James Sturm; Raina Telgemeier; Craig Thompson; Richard Thompson; Sara Varon; Jen Wang; Drew Weing; Gahan Wilson; Gene Luen Yang; Stephanie Yue; and an introduction by Leonard Marcus.

Leonard S. Marcus is one of the world’s leading writers about children’s books and the people who create them. His own award-winning books include Randolph Caldecott: The Man Who Could Not Stop Drawing; Listening for Madeleine: A Portrait of Madeleine L'Engle in Many Voices; Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom; Minders of Make Believe; The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth; Mr. Lincoln Sits for His Portrait: The Story of a Photograph That Became an American Icon; and Earthrise: The Story of the Photograph That Changed the Way We See Our Planet. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Chris Duffy has written many comic books, for Marvel and DC Comics, and has edited comics and graphic novels for Nickelodeon Magazine, United Plankton Pictures, DC Comics, and First Second, where he edited the New York Times bestseller Fairy Tale Comics. He currently is a senior editor at Workman Publishing, and lives in Cold Spring, New York, where he has seen a number of horses, but hasn't managed to ride one yet.

Jules Feiffer has won a number of prizes for his cartoons, plays, and screenplays, including the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. His books for children include The Man in the Ceiling, I’m Not Bobby!, A Room with a Zoo, and Bark, George. He illustrated Norton Juster’s children’s classic, The Phantom Tollbooth. He lives in New York City.

Roz Chast grew up in Brooklyn. Her cartoons began appearing in the New Yorker in 1978. Since then, she has published more than one thousand cartoons in the magazine. She has written and illustrated many books, including What I Hate: From A to Z, and the collections of her own cartoons The Party After You Left and Theories of Everything. She is the editor of The Best American Comics 2016 and the illustrator of Calvin Trillin's No Fair! No Fair! and Daniel Menaker's The African Svelte, all published in Fall 2016.

Reading Group Guide

For Discussion:

Nursery Rhyme Comics is a graphic novel, a story told in words and pictures. How do you think this story would be told differently if it was straight text? How would it be different if it was a movie, with just pictures?

Think about a text-only version of a nursery rhyme. Then think of one with only a single illustration. What do the three formats each bring to the rhymes? Is there a format you prefer?

Nursery Rhyme Comics has fifty rhymes by fifty creators. Is there one that's your favorite?

Why?

One of the most important elements to read-aloud books is pacing. Nursery Rhyme Comics

determines a great deal of the pacing and emphasis by breaking up lines between panels.

Does this work smoothly for you?

Think of a nursery rhyme that is not in this book. How would you adapt it into comics format?

Are there rhymes in this book that visually don't match what you see in your imagination while reading them? Do you know what texts or ideas affected your initial mental conception of those nursery rhymes?

How would this book be different if it was fifty rhymes illustrated by a single cartoonist? Do you think you would prefer it?

Have you read any other books by the creators of these rhymes? If so, how is their

storytelling style different or similar in their nursery rhymes and their other work?

Editorial Reviews

In this easy-to-read and fun to read aloud collection, classic nursery rhymes get a contemporary spin from artists as varied as the New Yorker's Roz Chast and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. Each miniature story is beautifully colored, making each two-page spread a visual treat, and the traditional panel form of comics and graphic novels merge easily with the syncopated beats of the familiar rhymes. The interpretations of the nursery songs range from literal—such as Lilli Carré's "Sing a Song of Sixpence" to the slightly wacky. In Dave Roman's "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe," the numbers in the title refer to tiny clones created by a wizard inventor, with the help of gadgets like the Clone Master 3000 and the Mega Incubator. And any preconceived notions you have about old women living in footwear should be abandoned before reading Lucy Kinsley's delightfully original "There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe." Instead of a crotchety crone, the titular woman lives in a funky boot and runs Ruth's Rock & Rock Babysitting. Every panel explodes with enough rich detail to keep attention glued to the page. Ages 3–up. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 3 Up—Fifty artists have taken on 50 old-fashioned nursery rhymes, resulting in an anthology that is funny, strange, sweet, and surprising. Some of the artists, like Nick Bruel and Marc Rosenthal, are familiar names in children's publishing; some, like the talented Mo Oh and Jen Wang, are relative newcomers. Craig Thompson and Jaime Hernandez are better known for their adult graphic novels, while Tony Millionaire and Patrick O'Donnell are more frequently found in the newspaper. The dizzying variety of mediums, styles, and techniques employed by these artists joyfully demonstrates the range and the limits to which the comics can be pushed. But as pleasurable as it is to survey this art, what really stands out is the way the artists have interpreted the texts. Many nursery rhymes, after all, have tragic or violent overtones, and most make little or no literal sense. Therefore, Scott Campbell draws "Pop! Goes the Weasel" as a series of tiny stories, each interrupted by that rascally weasel. Lucy Knisley turns "The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" into a happy old punk-rock hippie babysitter who "whips" the kids into a rock-and-roll frenzy before putting them to bed, happily tuckered out. Dave Roman populates "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" with a series of gnomelike clones and a wizardly inventor, while Craig Thompson draws a fairly literal interpretation of Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat." Add this updated nursery rhyme collection to any library whose readers appreciate both the silly and the sublime. It's clearly not your mother's Mother Goose.—Paula Willey, Baltimore County Public Library, Towson, MD

School Library Journal