A collection of traditional schoolyard verse, winningly grouped in
31 subjects from "Beginning of Term" to "End of Term" ("No more
beetles in my tea,/Making googly eyes at me") and including not
just "Insults," "Riddles," and "Nonsense" but such creative
headings as "Retaliation," "Guile - Innocent," "Book Desecration,"
and "Lullabies - Adolescent Style" - a book originally published in
Britain in 1947 and now given glorious new life. Sendak peoples
these small (5"X7") pages with hundreds of marvelous characters,
many in the irresistible small size he used in the "Nutshell
Library": delectable caricatures; cocky kids brimming with mischief
(even some of the appealingly vulnerable babies have a wicked gleam
in the eye); and more fearsome figures, reminders that - as
children themselves well know - darkness ever lurks. Sendak also
dramatizes the verses' challenging spirit in some splendidly witty
and imaginative interpretations: Dr. Fell is truly ghoulish, but
his victim remains undaunted. Scores of these pictures are
masterpieces of illustration: lively, exquisitely designed,
offering unexpected insights while enthusiastically celebrating
their texts. Overall, the handsome format is worthy of the content,
and the mood is insouciant glee. A treasure. New introduction by
Iona Opic; notes, nicely leavened by Sendak's characters, who
reappear among them. (Kirkus Reviews)
An uplifting and hugely entertaining collection of playground
rhymes, edited by Iona and Peter Opie, leading authorities on
children's rhymes, and with artwork by perhaps the world's most
influential picture book illustrator, Maurice Sendak. In print
again twenty years after it was first published, I saw Esau is a
wonderful pocket book collection of over 170 playground rhymes,
some of them hundreds of years old. From nonsense to riddles,
retaliation rhymes to insults, the chants of schoolchildren across
the centuries are revived in this joyful celebration of life and
laughter. Sendak's boisterous illustrations revel in the fun,
mischief and rebelliousness of childhood, and, as Iona Opie
recognises in her wonderful introduction, much of the book's charm
comes from its sense of the extraordinary indomitable spirit of
children: "In Maurice Sendak's pictures the child always wins".
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