Well, what can you say about Mother Goose?  My mother adored Mother Goose and read it to us often.  But frankly, as a parent I never really got into it.  I know the historic and literary relevance of nursery rhymes, but they just didn’t do much for me.  My kids never seemed much interested in them either.

Then I got the Mother Goose edition selected and illustrated by Mary Engelbreit (HarperCollins, 2005 with an introduction by the esteemed children’s literature historian Leonard S. Marcus).  And my attitude changed.  It’s just about impossible to resist the charms of Mary Engelbreit’s illustrations.

Mother Goose became my daughter’s favorite book.  And page fifty contains her favorite rhyme:

Ickle ockle, blue bockle,

Fishes in the sea,

If you want a pretty maid,

Please choose me. 

And why was this her favorite rhyme?  Because of its illustration:  a charming, little mermaid awash in a cascade of sunken treasure jewelry.  “Oh, to be a mermaid!”  My favorite illustration was Jack Spratt and his wife, but every night my daughter turned to page fifty before any other. 

So if you have a nursery rhyme resistant child, try Mary Engelbreit’s Mother Goose.   It just might convert them.

Some children’s books are classics.  Take Munro Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand (Robert Lawson, illustrator).  Originally published in 1936 by Viking, Ferdinand tells the story of a gentle, little bull who doesn’t want to butt and stick his horns around.  Ferdinand wants to “sit just quietly under the cork tree and smell the flowers.” 

But when Ferdinand sits on a bee and gets stung, Ferdinand gets picked to fight in the bullfight in Madrid.  Will Ferdinand fight?

Ferdinand is a charmer–from his hulking adult body rippling with muscles to his scared little face peeking around the doorway of the bull ring to his beatific bovine body plopped down in the center of the bullring completely content to just sit and smell the flowers from all the lovely ladies.  (The picture of the lovely ladies with flowers in their hair was always my favorite when I was a girl.) 

It’s interesting to consider that this book was written when Hitler was butting and sticking his horns around plenty.  At the time of its publication, The Story of Ferdinand was banned in Spain and burned as propoganda by Nazi Germany.  

But the world would be a better place if people were more like Ferdinand and his mother.  Ferdinand doesn’t fall for the peer pressure of the other little bulls.  His mother perfectly understands when to gently pressure and when to back off and let her child make his own decision.  Face it, sometimes animals are much better people than people.  Just ask Charlotte and Wilbur.

Purplicious (HarperCollins, 2007) by sisters Victoria and Elizabeth Kann is a sequel (of sorts) to Pinkalicious.  As you may know from reading Pinkalicious, the main character, who is called Pinkalicious, loves all things pink.  In Purplicious, she is at art class painting pink pictures.   

But soon artsy types in her class start making fun of her.  “Pink is passe.”  Black is in.  “Pink is putrid.”  Just like Kevin Henkes’ beloved heroine Chrysanthemum (one of my all-time favorite picture books), Pinkalicious is ridiculed by her classmates.

She gets the blues, screams at her family, and like many an adolescent girl who spends hours in her bedroom crying and writing depressing journal entries about her lonely, misunderstood and utterly hopeless existence, Pinkalicious says, ”I’m the only one in the whole wide world who likes pink.  I am all alone.  No one understands me.”

But then one day (spoiler alert), a new girl arrives in art class.  Her picture of a blue cake doesn’t look quite right.  ”I think I need some pink, and then it will be perfect,” she says.   Sure enough, she adds pink, the blue turns to purple, and voila, purplicious!

And for you pink and purple lovers, be sure to check out the authors’ website, www.cupcakesforall.com.  The “Fun Stuff” there has party ideas, coloring pages, pink games, and links to websites that have lots of pink stuff.  Plenty to keep you in the pink!

Ok, I have to admit I don’t really like pink–unless it’s hot pink.   I even refused to let my baby girls wear pink–unless grandma gave it to them.  Call it my feminist protest, and yes, I know the whole pastel pink/hot pink disctinction is totally irrational.  I’d also like to add that I’ve mellowed (some) over the years.

But many girls (and their moms) love pink, ADORE pink, can’t get enough pink.  So for all those pink lovers out there, there’s Pinkalicious (HarperCollins, 2006) by Victoria and Elizabeth Kann. 

In this picture book, a little girl and her mom make pink cupcakes.  “They were pinkalicious!” so naturally the little girl couldn’t eat just one.   But she eats so many she turns pink–pink hair, pink skin.  Which is fine by her.   She says, “I cried because I was so beautiful.  I even had PINK tears.”  She is Pinkerbelle, Pinkeralla, and has pinktails instead of pigtails.

But what to do when she eats one too many and turns red?  Pink is one thing, but red is quite another.  Something must be done!

With fun wordplay and PINK on every page, girls who love pink will love Pinkalicious.  Positively pinkcredible!