Babushka’s Mother Goose is a collection of poems from Patricia Polacco. The poems span a variety of topics that deal mainly with Polacco’s ethnic background and simple life styles (farm life, etc.). In my opinion, I found this collection very charming and fun to read through. The reasons for my opinion include the brilliant illustrations that litter the collection, the variety of pieces in the collection, and visually appealing text structure found scattered in the collection. The illustrations are drawn in the same iconic style as most of Polacco’s work; there is an artistic sketch aspect to outline of shapes, and a variety of vibrant colors used to fil in the entirety of pages. The illustrations also do an accurate job at portraying the text. For example, for the poem “Three Babushkas” there is a full-page illustration of 3 old women lying in a bed full of colorful linens; they sip from cups that are detailed with traditional polish pottery blue and white designs. The variety of the collection is also a notable aspect of this book. Poems range in a level of difficulty, topic, and style. For example, one poem entitled “Nina’s Three Kittens” there are 5 stanzas that match a consistent rhyme; whereas, “Clootcha Plootcha” deals with an entire different topic (a baby instead of cats) and is only one stanza that follows an extremely simple rhyme pattern. Besides poems, there are also short stories such as “Fox and Crane.” Lastly, the text is structured in a way that it is visually appealing and supports reading comprehension at times. For example, in the poem “The Train to Ivanovo” the stanzas are staggered to sit beside small illustrations to match the stanza; e.g. “this is the bread under the bed on the train to Ivanovo” with a drawing of a loaf of bread next to it and the next stanza staggered below it. The main idea of this collection is to enjoy life and feel free to be goofy. The age level that this is most appropriate for would be 3rd grade due to somewhat complex vocabulary and foreign words. ( )

Every child should exprience this. The exuberant, warm, bright illustrations complement the spirit of the text. The Ukrainian flavor to the stories is enlightening and enriching, as libraries still have in stock an undue preponderance of representations of Anglo-Germanic folk culture.

And if I, personally, actually *liked* Polacco's style of art, I'd probably give this five stars. But there's something about it that just displeases me. Sorry, but that's my personal opinion and I'm just being honest.

I do hope that when I bring this back to my library they display it more prominently. It's in the nonfiction folktale section, rather than the picture-books, and that section is much less popular among the little browsers. The physical book feels as if I'm only the second person to read it - what a shame. Take a hint - if you like books like this, explore the Dewey 398s. ;) ( )

A Russian version of Mother Goose.
I'm not very sure if this would be considered "Traditional Literature" ???

Polacco does a great job of incorporating Russian heritage into traditional Mother Goose tales. Her illustration style is bold, bright and vivid which add another layer to these stories. Although inspired from her Russian heritage, Polacco does a great job of making them familiar to all readers. This would be a great title to use in a story time or lesson plan about multicultural folktales or stories.

Drawing from traditional Ukrainian and Moldavian folklore, from the Mother Goose rhymes and from Aesop, and from her own inexhaustible store of original poems and songs, Patricia Polacco presents a picture-book anthology of short read-aloud selections in Babushka's Mother Goose, created as a tribute to her own Babushka, and to grandmothers everywhere. From the opening poem, Day, in which the sun calls upon young Sasha to wake up, to the concluding Day Ending, in which Babushka tucks her grandchildren into bed, the twenty-four pieces here reflect the Eastern European flavor of the storytelling she was exposed to as a young girl, sitting on the lap of her Babushka Gaw.

Although I can't say that this is one of my favorite Patricia Polacco titles - the original poems just didn't do much for me, and the traditional selections were too infrequent to compensate for it - I think that fans of the author/artist will still find material that they can enjoy. The artwork is vintage Polacco, very colorful (even more colorful than her usual fare), with a sense of motion and fun. Some scenes - particularly when accompanying some of the more traditional tales, like Fox and Crane (from Aesop) or The Clay Pot (an interesting variant on The Mitten) - reminded me of the work of Y. Rachov, in The Wheat Stalk: Ukrainian Folk Tales. I also greatly appreciated the author's brief note, at the beginning of the book, indicating which selections were original, and which were taken or adapted from other sources. ( )