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Yum! Yum!! Delicious Nursery Rhymes

by Joanne Fitzgerald

Joanne Fitzgerald illustrated the GG-winning Doctor Kiss Says Yes, and The Little Rooster and the Diamond Button, winner of a Mr. Christie’s Book Award. In Yum! Yum!!, she creates a tasty marriage of ingeniously presented rhymes and her own gently old-fashioned illustrations.
   

Only the last two words of the book – “Night night” – are original text; the rest are carefully selected food-related nursery rhymes (such as “Little Jack Horner” and “I Had a Little Nut Tree”) as well as familiar tongue twisters (“Peter Piper”). She pairs her selections with the illustrated story of a little pig going to market, in which little piggy coincidentally passes by spot illustrations of each rhyme. You can easily enjoy the book either as a collection of themed poems and chants or as a spot-the-pig narrative with enchanting details to discover.

Fitzgerald’s charming illustrations in this slim collection are all food-oriented, of course, which also explains the title as well as the dedication – “For farmers everywhere, with many, many thanks for all the wonderful things you grow.” Colours are soft, details are numerous, and the images suggest an unidentifiable fairy-tale time. But closer inspection reveals modern details such as heating pipes outside a building, a pig sporting a Mount Allison University sweatshirt, and a string of outdoor patio lights.

But even without these reminders of the 21st century, this is a timely book, given the current rise in popularity of locally grown food and outdoor farmers’ markets in cities. Fitzgerald has created a modern world much like our own, where children rediscover traditional pleasures such as communal meals, low-tech entertainment, and irresistible rhymes.

 

Reviewer: Carlyn Zwarenstein

Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside

DETAILS

Price: $19.95

Page Count: 32 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 978-1-55041-888-0

Released: Sept.

Issue Date: 2007-11

Categories: Picture Books

Age Range: 2-6

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