Folk Poetry From Everyone
by Alvin Schwartz
Illustrations by Sue Treusdell
HarperCollins Publishers, 1992
ISBN 0-06-022757-5
Ages 9-12
This book is a collection of chants and rhyme's Schwartz picked up throughout his lifetime. The introduction to the book starts off with examples of not-so-nice rhymes chanted at him during his early years, showing that they can be used for mean intentions. But others were used to tell what was going on in the world, or they could be simple nursery rhymes. Schwartz includes funny, silly, scary, sad, useful, and beautiful poems-- running the gamut of emotions and purposes.
I recognized quite a few. Every time we ate ice cream, my dad always chanted the I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream poem. Many of the poems have been put to well known tunes. In fact, a lot of the poems are actual variations of the original poems-- i.e. On Top of Old Smoky turns into On Top of Spaghetti. One song we wore out as children was put to the tune of the Wedding March: Here comes the bride, big fat and wide, here comes the groom, skinny as a broom. On road trips, we drove our parents nuts singing Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the wall or The Ants Go Marching One by One to the tune of When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again. Some pages have the melody printed in musical scale so those who can read music can pick out the tune on a piano or other musical instrument.
And how we did love to torture our friends with [insert name] and [insert name] sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First came love, then came marriage, then came [insert name] with a baby carriage. That was sure to cause some red faces when teasing a boy and girl.
Sue Treusdell's illustrations are in black, white, and gray tones. They look like they were drawn in pen, and shadowed with varying washes of gray. The pictures are all drawn in cartoon style, complementing the whimsy and humor in this book of folk rhymes.
This collection is by no means great literature, but these types of poems and chants are a big part of who we were and are, and I'm glad someone thought they were important enough to gather them together and put them in a book for archival's sake as well as for us to enjoy.