The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster

by David Conway, Melanie Williamson (Illustrator)

Little Miss Muffet is bored. She is tired of her same old nursery rhyme and she has had enough of that scary, little spider! So off she goes into the pages of the book to try other nursery rhymes. Falling down a hill with Jack and Jill was too painful, running up a clock is just embarrassing, and running away with the spoon caused a great ruckus with the dish! Soon Little Miss Muffet was running through the pages of the book and creating chaos throughout the rhymes. All of the characters were doing the wrong thing! Mother Goose has never been funnier than in this outrageously silly picture book!

Genres: Picture Books, Nursery Rhymes, Childrens, Storytime, Humor, Poetry, Animals

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

David Conway is a children's picture book author who has written for Hodder, Random House, Frances Lincoln and Gullane Children's Books. He has been awarded The Peter Pan Silver Star by the Swedish wing of the IBBY and the Parents' Choice Gold Award in the US for Lila and the Secret of Rain. His first picture book The Most Important Gift of All illustrated by Karin Littlewood, was nominated for The Kate Greenaway Medal in 2006.

David's most recent picture book The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster was chosen as one of the children's books of the year 2008 by Nicolette Jones of The Sunday Times and has been shortlisted for the 2009 Sheffield Children's Book Award. Shine Moon Shine was chosen as one of the top ten picture books of 2008 by The Bookbag.

David's picture books are published in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Spain (Catalan and Spanish) Columbia, Korea the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa and Japan. As well as writing David is a stay-at-home father and brings up his two children Bess and Jude and a cat called Bobby. David's wife works in academic publishing.

Reviews

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea and its execution for 'The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster' is excellent and Melanie Williamson has produced eye-catching illustrations to match.

Little Miss Muffet is bored of her own nursery rhyme and is definitely fed up with that dratted spider! She decides, therefore, to go in search of a new nursery rhyme that she could be in.

Unfortunately, and but before you can say 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers', disaster looms as a number of nursery rhymes are thrown into utter chaos!

Her first change is to join the Grand Old Duke of York but all that marching is just too much for Miss Muffet so she moves on to Jack and Jill but found that falling down and breaking her crown was not for her - too painful!

She felt she looked silly in 'Hickory, Dickory, Dock', 'Ding, Dong, Bell' was not for her as she found Jimmy Flynn and Tommy Snout too naughty for her liking, and when she ran away with the spoon, the dish, who had been running away with the spoon forever was very unhappy.

'Sing a Song of Sixpence' and 'The Queen of Hearts' were equally troublesome and by the time she had finished the whole nursery rhyme lexicon was in turmoil. So what does Miss Muffet do?

Well, see for yourself but I can tell you she still did not like that incy-wincy spider!

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty cute little tale of what happens the day Miss Muffet gets sick of getting scared by that mean ole spider, and heads off to check out some other nursery rhymes. It's probably no spoiler to admit that she decides sitting on a tuffet maybe ain't so bad after all.

Until the little striped spider shows up, that is . . .

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a fun exploration of nursery rhymes as Miss Muffet tries to be in other nursery rhymes because she’s fed up of her own. However, she doesn’t really fit in any of the others. It would be a nice way to end a topic of rhymes with young children and they could explore nursery rhymes and try to write their own for Miss Muffet. There are lots of colourful illustrations to complement the story. There’s some rhyme in the story although there’s also the narration. I think this is a good combination as it makes it a more intriguing plot.

[Fjóla · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's nothing all that subtle in here for the adult, but my son really liked this book where Little Miss Muffet goes looking for a better nursery rhyme to be in. In fact, this time the humor is aimed at the little ones, unlike (I suppose) for instance The Stinky Cheese Man: And Other Fairly Stupid Tales which my 3 year old hated. These are all familiar rhymes and on one of the page spreads they are all mixed up, something my kid really liked and lingered over trying to sort out the mess ...

My son would have rated the book higher, it is truly cute, but in fact he liked it so much that he was having me read it night after night, something which started to wear me out, because like I said it's not really that especially clever or subtle ...

[The Library Lady]

There have been a number of recent riffs on nursery rhymes in picture books, but most of the authors are so busy showing off their wit and playing to the adults that they don't leave much for the kids. This one is different--lots of familiar nursery rhymes are built into a funny story with plenty of appeal for preschoolers. I am going to pair this with If the Shoe Fits for a wonderful Mother Goose story hour for my 2 and up groups!

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love nursery rhyme books and this is a classic twist on many on the classics.

[Scott Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Title: The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster
Author: David Conway
Awards: None

Summary: Little Miss Muffet is tired of her boring old nursery rhyme and proceeds to try to join other classic Rhymes. Unfortunately, the adventure doesn't go as planned and soon all the nursery tales wind up in a chaotic mess. Miss Muffet learns a valuable lesson about being content in a light-hearted tale that reimagines the world of nursery rhymes.

Review/Application: This book would be an excellent addition to a late-year 2nd-grade focus upon poetry with regards to creative writing. Students could be challenged to continue a rhyme scheme or simply continue the story of a classic short rhyme. All in all, this would be a fun way to introduce the poetic genre to second graders who will focus more substantially on it in their writing in the coming 3rd-grade year.

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is an interesting twist on familiar nursery rhymes that we all would recognize, and turns it into a cute story of how little Miss Muffett was bored, and visited other nursery rhymes, only to find out that she would rather stay in her own nursery rhyme, because it was causing chaos. The moral of this story is that the grass isn't always greener on the other side, and to appreciate what you have. The illustrations in this book are very detailed and fun to look at.

[Terry]

My kids (4, 6) loved the humor - and reading this over and over again. My daughter (4) loves how funny it is when the characters are in the wrong stories, especially the pages that describe everything going awry. For my son (6), it was the silliness of the characters ending up in different stories.

Mom loved the creativity of this book. See why in the Reading Tub review.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Funny enough for preschoolers I suppose, but it's really really important to value spiders as a key part of our ecosystems and not to encourage ppl to fear them. And adult me didn't particularly like much besides the basic concept anyway.

[Andrea Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

nursery rhyme gone a muck.

[Gemma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved reading this to my daughter. A funny story and brilliant rhyme.

[Christina Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun for children who are familiar with their nursery rhymes, with bright illustrations bursting off the page!

[The Campbell Family · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had fun, colorful illustrations and a silly storyline. We enjoyed it!

[Jenna Mills · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't that keen. Some odd rhymes chosen and I felt that more could have been done with the idea

[Keshia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story!

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book only makes sense if children are well versed in the nursery rhymes.

[Alan Winter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute!!!

[Christina Cabezas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title: The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster
Author: David Conway
Genre: Nursery Rhyme
Theme(s): Exploration, adventure, trying new things.
Opening line/sentence:
Little Miss Muffet was bored.
Brief Book Summary: The main character of this collection of Nursery Rhymes is Little Miss Muffet. She finds herself tired of her own story, and decides to venture throughout the book in search of a different Nursery Rhyme to be a part of. After traveling through the book and messing up the stories of the other characters, she finds herself back in her own story- only to remember why it was that she left in the first place.
Professional Recommendation/Review #1:
Rowan Stanfield (Carousel 42, June 2009)
In this topsy-turvy nursery rhyme world, Little Miss Muffett is bored of her repetitive role, and sick of being intimidated by spiders, so decides to break out of her own story to see what is happening elsewhere. Bumping into all sorts of well-known characters along the way-- including the Grand Old Duke of York, Jack and Jill and the Queen of Hearts -- Miss Muffett upsets plots all over the place, causing much chaos in the process. It's an amusingly anarchic take on a familiar format, with matchingly madcap illustrations. Satisfyingly silly, inquisitive young minds will no doubt identify with Miss Muffett's need to explore the unknown, though protective parents may not necessarily approve of her rebellious tendencies. Category: Picture Books. Hodder, 10.99.
Professional Recommendation/Review #2:
Midwest Book Review (Children's Bookwatch, January 2009)
The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster is a children's picturebook that turns traditional nursery rhymes on their head! When Little Miss Muffet gets bored of hanging out with the scary spider of her own nursery rhyme, she searches for another nursery rhyme to be in. Jack and Jill's nursery rhyme involves too much injury; the dish gets jealous when she tires to run away with the spoon; and she looks silly when she tries to climb a clock like the mouse in "Hickory, Dickory, Dock". What is a young girl to do? Charming, cartoony illustrations add the perfect twisted-fairy-tale touch to this lighthearted adventure. The Picturebook Shelf...., Tiger Gales, $15.95. Ages 4+
Response to Two Professional Reviews:
This book is certainly amusing and silly- a fun one for kids who are already familiar with popular nursery rhymes. I agree that young children with imaginative and adventurous minds will surely enjoy this creative story. I do not see it being a big deal that parents with disagree with the rebellion of Little Miss Muffet. I think that they story plays her actions as more adventurous rather than rebellious.
Evaluation of Literary Elements:
The unique aspect of this book is that it knows it's a book as it narrates the main character's journey from page to page in search of a new nursery rhyme to be a part of. The cartoon-ish illustrations are perfect for setting the light-hearted, silly mood of the story. Children will be able to identify with Little Miss Muffet's desire to explore and try out new things as opposed to staying in one place for too long.
Consideration of Instructional Application:
Although not the best book for introducing children to nursery rhymes, this book is great for learners who already have a good idea of popular nursery rhymes. They could write their own version of the book by choosing their favorite character from a nursery rhyme, then writing a story about their life and possible attempts to join a new story. For younger students, this book could be used to talk about what happens when one person/thing reverts from the norm and how that action leads to a "domino-effect" of consequential actions.

[Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

1) No awards currently.
2) 2nd to 5th Grade.
3) Miss Muffet gets sick and tired of living in the same old nursery rhyme and decides to make a change and travel into some other nursery rhymes. She makes her way through the book and travels through other classics such as Jack and Jill, Duke of York and Hey Diddle diddle. After causing complete chaos in everyone else's nursery rhyme, she comes to the conclusion that the grass was not greener on the other side.
4) A fun and witty play on many of the classic nursery rhymes and an overall fun read. However, this book is largely built off of the assumption that readers are familiar with all of the classic nursery rhymes and also lacks any character that is not either white or an animal, which is also a simple reflection of the root of all the "classic" nursery rhymes. A fun book, not one I would likely chose to share with a class.
5)
a) After doing a nursery rhyme series incorporating the 'classics' by European standards, using this book as a class read-a-loud to interweave of the now familiar stories into one fun and fluid story would be a wonderful way to encourage text to text connections for students.
b) Create your own rhyme about an adventure such as the one miss muffet had.

[Cruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

author: David Conway
illustrator: Melanie Williamson
first published: 2008

My niece turns 3 this week, and I am always looking for books that are
- unusual
- engaging to the child
- interesting for the reader
- that she (or her older sister) doesn't already have.

This year it's going to be nursery rhymes. To match Conway's book I have picked up Scheffler's Mother Goose's Storytime Nursery Rhymes (review here).

Conway takes the traditional nursery rhymes and plays with them. Little Miss Muffet traverses the nursery rhyme book, looking for a less scary place to be (spiders... ick!).

from http://tigertalesbooks .com

Lovely, colourful illustrations with a simple, humorous narrative. A wonderful pre-school book.

Rhymes visited:
Little Miss Muffet
Grand Old Duke
Jack and Jill
Hickory, Dickory, Dock
Ding, Dong, Bell
Hey Diddle, Diddle
Sing a Song of Sixpence
The Queen of Hearts
Mary had a Little Lamb
Humpty Dumpty

Age (taking into account comprehension, concentration, language):
Read aloud - 3+
Read yourself - 6+, although the child should be participating much, much earlier.

(ISBN 9780340945087)

-CR-

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster had me at hello.

How can you resist a story that begins with the line "Little Miss Muffet was bored"?

Little Miss Muffet was bored.

She was bored of being in the same old nursery rhyme and she'd had quite enough of that scary, little spider.

"What I need," she told herself, "is a change."

So off she went into the pages of the book to find another nursery rhyme to be in.

Miss Muffet tries joining the grand old Duke of York:

Oh, the grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them and Miss Muffet up
to the top of the hill
and he marched them down again.

Turns out Miss Muffet doesn't like all the marching. Jack and Jill turns out to be too painful. Climbing up and sliding down a clock is too embarrassing. "Ding, dong, bell" finds her wet and unhappy; "Hey diddle, diddle" finds the dish unhappy after Miss Muffet runs away with the spoon, resulting in several pages of RUCKUS that gains momentum as it makes its way through Four and Twenty Blackbirds, the Queen of Hearts and more.

In the end, Little Miss Muffet returns to her usual story, only to recall why she'd wanted the change to begin with.

Picture book writers interested in form will appreciate this one's use of a circular story arc – the character ends up where she started, slightly wiser than when she set out in the first place. In this case, as you can see above, the text does not begin with Miss Muffet's nursery rhyme, although it tells us enough about it to remind us what her story is. The book ends, however, with her own nursery rhyme, with no text following her rhyme. Because of this, it practically invites child listeners to demand a second reading, since the commentary on page one logically follows a reading or recitation of Miss Muffet's rhyme.

[K.L. Bernard · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you think could happen if a nursery rhyme character decided to make a change? Well, in The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster, the keyword being disaster, Little Miss Muffet causes a serious ruckus. You see, one day Little Miss Muffet decided she wanted to visit some of the other nursery rhymes on the other pages. The Grand Old Duke of York had too much marching going on. On the next page, Little Miss Muffet didn't care much for broken crowns when she stumbled across Jack and Jill. This goes on and on as Little Miss Muffet encounters Three Blind Mice, Johnny Flynn and Tommy Stout and The Cat and the Fiddle. But it was when she met the Dish and the Spoon that all the ruckus begins.

David Conway takes kids on a journey through some of the favorite and most recognizable nursery rhymes. Bigger than life characters created in fun colorful drawings are silly. There are lots of funny things going on in every part of the page. Kids will love the challenges and could perhaps create their own outcome of this hilarious tale.

[Rebecca]

This postmodern book follows Miss Muffet as she decides to go out of her own story and find one without a spider that will scare her. She travels between all sorts of different nursery rhymes and causes all sort of trouble. The book includes many meta fictive devices such as intertextuality, text and illustration interplay, and unusual layout. Some of the text is written is spirals or other ways you wouldn't normally expect. The way the text is written in some places gives off a tone of chaos which greatly reflects the actions of the character. Young children would enjoy this book greatly because they get to see the nursery rhymes they've heard go haywire with a new character being introduced.

[Kiah Swanson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster works in many well known nursery rhymes with a twist. These versions of the nursery rhymes uses the metafictive device of a story within a story. There is a story within a story as Little Miss Muffet decides she needs a change. Miss Muffet travels through the book of nursery rhymes looking for a new rhyme to be a part of, but her movement has caused a stir in the book. Miss Muffet’s story is being told right in with each of the nursery rhymes. The images used throughout the book have a style that matches, but within each individual nursery rhyme, the characters have different shapes (shape edges, squares, rounded edges) that give personality to and connect with their respective rhyme. This book is engaging and fun to read!

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fun look at nursery rhymes. This is another with an interesting perspective on story/book in that the main character, Little Miss Muffett, travels through the book in search of a better nursery rhyme to be in. While the 'disaster' I thought could have been more fun (although I'm not sure how I'd do it differently), the ending is humorous and is worth it. My son was familiar with some of the nursery rhymes, although Miss Muffett not as much as the others and reading them right before this one may have helped a little with the humor of it.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poor Miss Muffet. She is bored. She's tired of her rhyme, she's tired of the spider, and she wants a change now. So Little Miss Muffet begins to explore the nursery rhyme book to see if she can find a rhyme she likes better than her own. What follows is a lot of chaos with messed up rhymes and unhappy characters until Miss Muffet decides to settle back into her own rhyme with that scary spider. My daughter would say, "That's not how it goes! That's silly!" for every altered rhyme. Great illustrations and a cute take on nursery rhymes.

[Maddie Shell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminded me a lot of Goldilocks - It was about Miss Muffet who is roaming from nursery rhyme to nursery rhyme to find the perfect one that fits her - just as Goldilocks searches for the perfect fit in the bears' cabin. She enters rhymes such as Hickory Dickory Dock, Jack and Jill, Hey Diddle Diddle, etc. I thought this book was a very playful and cute story. It would be a great book to read with kids to review nursery rhymes or to teach postmodern books that show stories within stories.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kid-tested and mother-approved! I've been testing out my booktalk books on my 6 and 8 year old and they erally enjoyed this one. We had fun saying the original rhymes too (if we knew them.) Here's my booktalk talk:

What happens when a nursery-tale character gtets bored in her own rhyme? She tries out others, that's what! But not everyone appreciates a new character in their rhyme and what follows is a hilarious mess! Be sure to look at the pictures carefully in this one.

[Miss Ryoko · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was disappointing. It looked like it was going to be much cuter than it actual was. The illustrations were fun, and I loved how before Miss Muffet went to a new rhyme, there was a clue given by an animal holding up a sign, but the nursery rhymes were just the same except with Miss Muffet in it somewhere, and I just found it boring. Unfortunate.