Once upon a time, parents simply reached for a volume of Mother Goose nursery rhymes at bedtime. Now they face a decision. They can read the old, traditional Mother Goose to their children, or a new, revised one.
Depending or your point of view, (a) a gentle new volume of rhymes has been added to the children’s bookshelf, or (b) political correctness has grabbed Mother Goose by the throat and is choking her to death.
Remember the nursery rhyme about Georgie Porgie? He was the one who:
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away.
That sends bad messages, says Bruce Lansky, author and publisher of “The New Adventures of Mother Goose” (Meadowbrook Press, $15). He said that poem teaches that “teasing girls is OK” and “what girls want doesn’t matter.”
Here’s Lansky’s version:
Georgie Porgie, what a shame
Kids call you such a silly name.
Now I think you know it’s true
That teasing wasn’t nice to do.
In the Lansky version, the three blind mice have become three kind mice, and the farmer’s wife no longer cuts off their tails. Now they cut her a slice of cheese.
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, who put his wife in a pumpkin shell, becomes a spokesman for good dental care:
Peter, Peter sugar eater
Always wanted food much sweeter.
Adding sugar was a blunder,
Now he is a toothless wonder.
Lansky also rewrites “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.” The traditional version asks Mary:
How does your garden grow?
Silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.
Lansky substitutes:
What does your garden grow?
Spinach, broccoli, cauliflower?
To which Mary answered, “No.”
Other “new and improved” rhymes:
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
Which wasn’t too bad when the winter winds blew.
But the strong summer sun was too hot to handle,
So she packed up her things and moved to a sandal.
And then:
Old King Cole was a chubby old soul
Who loved to play the fiddle.
When given a chance, he’d often dance
Till his pants split down the middle.
That kind of rewriting of a classic is repellent to Jane Resh Thomas, reviewer of children’s books and an author of seven such titles. Lansky has “stolen the Mother Goose rhymes and inserted dead language into them,” she said.
Richard Lederer, author of books about language including “Crazy English,” called the Lansky rewrites of traditional verses “a triumph of politics over poetry. Messing with nursery rhymes is Orwellian.”
That view isn’t unanimous, however. Lansky’s book has its good points, said Jack Zipes of Minneapolis, editor of “The Lion and the Unicorn,” a journal of children’s literature and author of contemporary fairy tales, including a book of feminist fairy tales.
“If you do a book like this, you’d better do it well. That’s the case when you take on the classics. They are classics because of their style and pizazz. The new ones have to go one better. Some of the verses are successful, some fall flat, I’d say,” Zipes said.
Lansky said he wrote the book “strictly to have an updated book and give kids something they could relate to.” Most traditional Mother Goose rhymes have a value, he said, but many also condone violence and promote incorrect behavior, such as the idea that it’s OK for Peter, the pumpkin eater, to keep his wife in a pumpkin shell.
Lansky stoutly denies political correctness as a motive. He only wants to purge Mother Goose of things that just happen to be politically incorrect.
This is not the first time that Mother Goose has been changed to reflect a new era’s sensibilities. Kathleen Johnson, head of the Children’s Books section of the Minneapolis Public Library, said the rhymes “are constantly being reinterpreted and re-selected.”
Mother Goose was criticized for its violence as long ago as the 17th Century, she said. Johnson and other children’s literature experts cited other modern variants, including a black version differing mainly in the illustrations, a 1960s “anti-establishment” version (“There was a crooked man, and he did very well”) and a 1980s variant that rewrote every verse to make a point about racial or gender equality, with environmentalism and good nutrition thrown in (“Three men in a tub” became “three folks in a tub”).
Lansky said he doesn’t intend his book to replace Mother Goose, but to supplement it. If parents disapprove of certain traditional verses, such as the old woman who lived in a shoe and whipped her children, “there are no pages you have to skip over in this book.”
Karen Nelson Hoyle, a professor of children’s literature at the University of Minnesota, said Mother Goose will survive her latest revision.
“People do try to manipulate the verses in every decade, but the old ones will remain as they are. They really are a part of our culture. When someone says Humpty Dumpty, we all know what’s being talked about.”
