Review: Mary and Her Little Lamb

Mary and Her Little Lamb by Will Moses

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Will Moses' Americana style figure illustrations in this book are perfectly meshed with an impressionistic style used in the landscape backgrounds. Very interesting to look at, and complex enough to sustain long looking.

Semadar Megged gets the credit as the designer for this book, and the borders and page layouts are consistent with the illustrations and the story content.

This story is consistent with Opie's essay on this song in [b:The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes|617991|The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes|Iona Opie|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1365989080s/617991.jpg|604404], and gives more extended information such as an early score and the two additional verses. As such, I would call this an excellent slice of history. Not historical fiction, but straight history.

This poem is a great argument for the inverse folklore process. That is, while the poem gained widespread circulation by word of mouth, it was originally a literary work--in print first. With many folk tales and fairy tales it is now accepted that they may have been first written by an ancient author, and then spread by folk processes. Of course, there are many examples of the oral coming first, but it's not an all or nothing prospect.



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