Module 3: Nursery Rhymes, Poetry, and Picture Books
Poetry and Nursery Rhymes
The origins of poetry for children can be traced back the 16th and 17th centuries to John Bunyan and Isaac Watts. Each writer felt that instilling Christian values was paramount and that poetry was the best medium for that. This was a form of “didactic” writing, but their poetry also incorporated figurative language.
In the 18th century Mother Goose rhymes began. The author is still unknown. These “nursery rhymes” convey older folk wisdom. On of the earliest collection of nursery rhymes is Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book by Mary Cooper (1744). Below is a famous stanza from the collection:
Little Robbin red breast
Sitting on a pole
Niddle, Noddle,
Went his head,
And Poop went his Hole.
In the late 18th century the Romantic poets were enamored of childhood. William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweep” is narrated using a child’s voice. Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885) also incorporated a child’s point of view of the domesticity of the nursery and the wonder of the outside world, as we see in “My Bed Is a Boat.” Jane Taylor’s Rhymes for the Nursery (1806) included the poem “The Star,” which we know as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Mary Howitt wrote the didactic “narrative poem” “The Spider and the Fly” Lewis Carroll pokes fun at this in Alice in Wonderland. The poem is didactic because it imparts a lesson, and it is narrative because it tells a story.
The 19th century also saw the rise of nonsense poetry, the greatest authors of which were Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and Hilare Belloc. This type of poetry uplifted word play and experimentation with sound and image. Below is part of Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat.”
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
Then, of course, is Lewis Carrolls famous “Jabberwocky” from Through the Looking-Glass. Below are lines 1 – 4. This example has a clear rhyme scheme of A B A B. This means, the first and third lines rhyme as do the second and fourth.
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves;
And the mome raths outgrabe.
As silly as it sounds, many of the words are real and they roll off the tongue. There are two important poetic devices are work too. One is “alliteration” (gyre and gimble). Alliteration is the repeating of sounds, in this case the “g” sound. Also, we see “portmanteau” (slithy). A portmanteau is a combination of words into one, in this case the words “lithe” and “slimy.” Carroll was well known for this device.
In the 20th century, children’s literature boomed, and it took on great cultural and social relevance. Some authors were known primarily for their writing for children, such as A.A. Milne, who wrote Winnie the Pooh and Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Seuss, who wrote The Cat in the Hat and other iconic works. Seuss’ work also sees the bridge between text and image. Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends has become a classic of children’s poetry. Silverstein wrote both lyric and narrative poems. Lyric poems focus on a feeling, whereas narrative poems tell a story. Roald Dahl, who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, also wrote darkly playful poetry, such as his collection Revolting Rhymes (1982) and Dirty Beasts (1984). These collections are akin to the fractured fairy tales discussed earlier. Influenced by both authors is Jack Prelutsky, who was the first poet laureate of the United States. His My Dog May Be a Genius (2008) has poems that focus on domestic elements like family and pets. Other contemporary poets for children are Pat Mora, Maya Angelou, and Gary Soto, to name a few.
Concrete poetry is a comparatively recent poetic form, with authors like John Hollander, who wrote “Kitty and Bug.” Concrete poems take on visual form to enhance the words.
Poetry for children can serve several functions:
- It can foster emotional and cognitive development
- It can allow adults to convey spiritual and social instruction
- It can instill a fascination with the interplay of words and figurative language
- It can be used with children’s games and play
Picture books
Picture books originated in the 17th century with advent of instructional texts that used pictures to explain the natural world. The earliest known of these books is the Orbis Sensualium Pictus by John Comenius (1658). In the late 19th and early 20th centuries there was a boom in illustrated books since printing techniques had improved and more individuals could afford the illustrated books. Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, and Beatrix Potter were three major authors in America and Britain. Caledecott, who would later have an illustration award–The Caldecott Medal–named after him, was best known for illustrating nursery rhymes. Kate Greenaway wrote the alphabet book A Apple Pie(1886), which combined illustrations with brief passages related to each letter. The Kate Greenaway Medal was created in her honor in Britain in 1955. Beatrix Potter is famous for her The Tale of Peter Rabbit, among other books.
Postmodern picture books can be metafictional, in which the book is created as if to be aware of itself. The Mischievians is a perfect example. Listen to the read aloud. Contemporary picture books also comprise many themes, such as diversity, loneliness, bereavement, science, sports, fantasy, history, and more. Some picture books, such as Tuesday are completely without text. However, literary scholar Perry Nodelman states that words can make pictures into rich narrative sources and can change the meaning of pictures. Also, children’s literature scholar Denise I. Matulka suggest three specific categories for the interrelation of text and image:
- Symmetrical – in which the text and illustrations are congruent
- Complementary – in which the text add images are interdependent and the text adds information not found in the images
- Contradictory – in which text and image are opposite in meaning, which provides irony.
