Mother Goose Remembers - A Barefoot Book Review

Mother Goose Remembers

Compiled and Illustrated by: Clare Beaton
Read Alone: Ages 4-7
Read Together: Ages 0-4
Hardcover with CD; Full-color illustrations; 64pp;
9 x 10.25 inches
Awards and Honors:
NCSS–CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People, 2000
Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Book of the Year, 2001
Society of Illustrators Original Art Exhibition, 2000

Recent praise:

“Beaton stitches and appliques her way through 46 nursery rhymes, including a few less familiar treasures…. She exquisitely and inventively crafts each picture from felt, antique fabrics and bric-a-brac. In “I Had a Little Nut Tree,’ for example, the tree is made from eyelet fabric and dotted with tiny wooden beads. Beaton’s work evokes the cozy domesticity and unhurried days of a bygone era, and many adults may find it refreshing to find a Mother Goose untainted by zingy modern ironies.” - Publishers Weekly

Book Review:

This book is a compilation of 46 popular nursery rhymes with unique hand-sewn illustrations by Clare Beaton. Her illustration technique is so distinctive you would think it is a real 3-d hand-sewn book! Her artwork consists of antique fabrics, old jewelry, threads, bric-a-brac, laces, and other stuffs put together to form a collage! Her rendition of these nursery rhymes in a collage and not in ink gives the child the longing to touch them. Look at this nursery rhyme from her book and tell me if you do not think you would like to touch them as well. Look closer, even closer…



A partial list of the nursery rhymes compiled in this book are the following:

Humpty Dumpty - page 9

The Grand Old Duke of York - page 10

To Market, To Market - page 17

The Woman who lived in a shoe

Sing a Song of Sixpence - page 20

This Little Pig Went to Market - page 22

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep - page 25

Ring Around the Roses - page 27

Little Bo Peep - page 29

Little Miss Muffet - page 33

Rock-a-Bye Baby - page 34

Jack Be Nimble - page 57 (my all time favorite - I can still memorize it: Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be quick, Jack jump over the candle stick!)

Hey Diddle Diddle - page 58 -



I highly recommend this book for the new mothers, and pregnant women who would like to learn the many nursery rhymes that babies would like to listen to. Also, this book is a great gift for baby showers - especially that this book comes with a CD plus an introduction from one of the Barefoot books publishers, Tessa Strickland explaining about the significance of Mother Goose and where did it originate. I learned from her Introduction that a mother goose is a carrier of the great Hindu goddess Sarawasti, the goddess of learning language, music and arts.