The Rooster Crows: A Book of American Rhymes and Jingles

by Maud Petersham, Miska Petersham

Here is part of America's heritage -- gay verses beautifully illustrated by famous artists. "The rooster crows and away he goes", pictured on the jacket, is only one of these well-known nursery rhymes, counting-out games, skipping-rope songs, finger games, and other jingles beloved by American children for generations. They come from collections all over America, so you may find some that are new as well as your own favorites.

"Mother, may I go out to swim", "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear", "Roses are red, violets are blue", all are here, each one charmingly illustrated to make this an outstanding picture book. An American Mother Goose for every child's library.

Genres: Picture Books, Poetry, Childrens, Nursery Rhymes, Classics, Fiction, Folklore

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1945

About the author

Maud Fuller was the daughter of a Baptist minister, She grew up with three sisters in a parsonage. The family moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Newburg, New York, and finally to Scranton, Pennsylvania. As a child, she loved picture books and to draw. After graduating from Vassar College she studied at the New York School Of Fine And Applied Art. Her first job was in the art department at the International Art Service, an advertising firm, where she met her husband, Miska Petersham.

The Petershams began illustrating books together, at first only for other authors. In 1929 they wrote and illustrated their first book, Miki, about their son. In 1946, the couple received the Caldecott Medal for The Rooster Crows, a book of American songs, rhymes, and games in the tradition of Mother Goose. Often they traveled to foreign lands such as Holland, Greece, Germany, and Palestine to do research for their books. They had a close working relationship with their juvenile editor and were allowed to plan their own books entirely from making the dummy to choosing the format, layout, colors, and type. Their routine consisted of Maud writing the stories and doing the roughs; then Miska would finish, doing the color separations on acetate and all the tedious hand work.

The Petershams wrote and illustrated 60 books for children and illustrated 100 by other authors. When Miska died in 1960, Maud sold the Woodstock, New York, house in which they had lived and worked for forty years and moved to a smaller home in Woodstock. In addition to the 1946 Caldecott Medal for The Rooster Crows, the Petershams also received the 1942 Caldecott Honour Award in 1942 for "An American ABC".

Reviews

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his hair.
Then Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy,
Was he?

1943- A Book of American Rhymes and Jingles

When I was in elementary school I loved playing hand games and jump roping while singing some songs. It was such a fun thing to do. Now, I don’t see little girls double dutching or playing any hand games. It’s become an introvert kind of world. “I have many online friends and no real life friends.”

While I grew up in the United States I didn’t know any of these songs. Maybe a handful? Some were cute, some confusing, some cruel. Even the cruel ones were probably a form of bullying, but shoot!, this was a nice way of bullying compared to now!

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her.
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.

Weird right? Did Peter murder her?

The illustrations I can definitely say are beautiful and old school. These are the drawings that I admire. I like that someone put this together and seeked out old rhymes. We cannot/should not forget the past even silly “corny” things.

I see the moon,
And the moon sees me.
God bless the moon,
And God bless me.

[Calista · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a story, only a collection of rhymes of children from the 40s. Some of them are for games and others are for counting. The art is lovely here. I don't see why it won as there is not a story, but I have noticed these Mid 40s books often are collections of little things, songs. They were experimenting here.

I read this to the nephew and he was not too into it. He gave it one star. 'It's Boring' he said.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1946 Caldecott winner is a really lovely book. On first glance it might seem too "old-fashioned" for today's readers but I think it still has a lot to offer. In fact, I was completely surprised to find that my one-year-old son was really drawn to the illustrations. He loves pictures with animals and nature. He even pointed at the trees in the illustrations and then at the trees outside, which he had never done before. I love the illustrations! It is interesting to hear some new verses, and to hear different takes on ones I had grown up hearing (for example, the Mary Had a Little Lamb! I'd never heard it with the black wool version.) The children in the illustrations are all so expressive and perhaps it is their faces that make these so timeless even though the settings and clothing are so different from ours today. A few verses might not be good for sensitive readers, and I know some of this is not quite "PC" these days (for example, in one verse a gun is shot and five rabbits go running off in fright) so I deduct a star for that but I still think that, on the whole, it is a valuable collection of American rhymes and jingles with absolutely gorgeous artwork.

[Luisa Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

American rhymes and jingles set to scrumptious illustrations!

Ages: 4 - 9

Cleanliness: nothing to note.

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[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely one of my favorite Caldecott winners! The illustrations are perfect and precious. It's all very cute-sy, but I love that. It's amazing how much a simple nursery rhyme can change since 1945, but it was great fun reading a previous version of many of them. My favorite would have to be:
"Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was black as tar.
And everywhere that Mary went
They thought it was a b-a-a-r."

Love it!

[Book Concierge · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subtitle is: A Book of American Rhymes and Jingles. And that’s what it is, a collection of rhymes and jingles. Most were familiar to me from my childhood. There really is no story arc, though there is some effort to group them by categories, e.g. jokes/riddles. I’m not sure I would have sat still to have this read to me even as a young child.

The illustrations are wonderful, however. Very detailed and clearly support the rhymes and jingles. So 2 stars for that.

[midnightfaerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

We loved this book for many reasons. The old-fashioned pictures were beautiful and reminded me of some of my books from my childhood so I can completely agree with the Caldecott award given to this book. The book is full of jingles and rhymes and so many of them brought back memories from when I was a kid. Playing jump rope, choosing a team captain, and playing different types of pat-a-cake (what WAS this called that us girls did? Sitting on the play ground hitting each others hands to different songs?) were just some of the things that I used to do to these rhymes. Not only that, many of them I had already taught my children, or we had heard at story time at the library, and they loved that! It was a pretty long book, and next time, I'll break it up into sections instead of trying to read it all at once. My 5 yr old was fine, but my preschoolers started to get distracted toward the end. We even loved the rhymes we didn't know, and look forward to memorizing those as well.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

1946 Caldecott Medal
Yes, the illustrations are old and the book feels outdated, but I ended up enjoying this book. It has Old Mother Goose rhymes, finger games with illustrations on how to perform them, rope skipping and counting-out rhymes, and a few games. I loved that a few of the rhymes were some that my grandmother used to recite and have been passed down through generations. I would love to see this book republished with fresh illustrations and a few poems, so that we can keep passing these rhymes and riddles down through our families.

[Lafcadio · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a large collection. This is a strange collection. This is not a well-edited collection.

Nursery rhymes and jingles should have a rhyming quality and a meter to them. Many of these have a lovely repetitive meter and rhyme for two or three lines, and then fall flat. The last line doesn't rhyme and doesn't have enough syllables. Much of reading this book felt like rapidly changing the radio station mid-song.

Some of the rhymes I recognized, with slightly different words. I can get behind slightly different words. Words change; that's fine. What I can't get behind is when something no longer rhymes, or has lost any semblance of rhythm. Here's one:

Ring around a' rosies
Pocket full of posies
Sweet bread, rye bread
Squat

The ending neither rhymes nor follows the rhythm of the song. Others in this collection just don't make any sense at all. I don't mean nonsense in the whimsical dish-ran-away-with-the-spoon kind of way. I mean like this:

A knife and a fork
A bottle and a cork
That's the way to
Spell New York

No it's not. Not even metaphorically. If it ended "that's the way to rhyme New York," it would make sense. But that is not how you spell New York. This was not even the weirdest example.

[Brittany]

“Little Miss Muffet” and “Star Light, Star Bright,” come back to the memory as easily as “Roses are red, Violets are blue.” There are finger games that gives illustrations of how to play as one goes as followed: These are mothers knives and forks And this is mother's table. This is mother's looking glass And this is baby cradle. the rhyme has illustration so the reader can understand to put your hand together like a knife, and end with a cradle which helps kids and makes the book even more interesting. The setting and clothing are very different from our time today(2014) which may seem like the book is old fashioned, but it has much to show in the enjoyable pictures. Little details such as the children wearing overalls, children wearing bonnets, and just the overall color structure highlights the time frame of these rhymes. The illustrations are done in pencil and they have so much detail. The children's faces in the illustration show much feelings and expression.

This is a cute book full of short little poems. If I was teaching a lesson on poetry to younger ages then I would use this book as an example. It is super cute and has a lot of funny poems within it.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

First sentence: Here is part of America's heritage--gay verses beautifully illustrated by famous artists.

Premise/plot: The Rooster Crows is a Caldecott award-winner from the 1940s. It is a collection of poetry really. Rhymes and Jingles. Finger Games. Rope Skipping Rhymes. Counting-Out Rhymes. Games. Yankee Doodle.

I asked my mother for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence.
He jumped so high
He reached the sky
And never came back till the Fourth of July.

Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was black as tar.
And everywhere that Mary went
They thought it was a b-a-a-r.

I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on my knife.

My thoughts: It was a pleasant enough read. Some of the illustrations were absolutely amazing. I really enjoyed looking this one through. Some rhymes were more enjoyable than others. But overall I liked it.

Text: 3 out of 5
Illustrations: 4 out of 5
Total: 7 out of 10

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Caldecott winner has pretty good illustrations overall. One depicts some children w/wings on clouds, as though they are angels, which is not my favorite subject for an illustration since it's contrary to the Bible, so that's a discussion point. There are a few love/romantic themes I might want to discuss in some of the rhymes, but nothing really out of the ordinary -- typical silly nursery rhymes. This is a short collection with variety, but it includes classics, some with a slightly different take than I've heard. It could easily be read in one sitting to younger children. A fun one we got a kick out of was, "I eat my peas with honey, I've done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny, but it keeps them on my knife." :)

[Katt Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these rhymes were new to me, most weren't. I remember the jump rope rhymes though they weren't even used much when I was a kid. Liked the illustrations but wasn't sure what to make of the cross look or grumpy look on most of the faces. Kind of liked that no one had plastic smiles but more 'real' expressions. Was fun to see the old-fashioned clothes and settings. Overall, it was a fun book though maybe not the greatest for reading aloud on some of those as they just don't make sense out of context. Could be fun to use for homeschool if you play the games that go with some of those.

[Tricia Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book for one of my GR's children's book clubs. It was a Caldecott winner in the year I was born and I remember having this book on my shelf as a child. It brings back special memories to me and I loved (and still do) the simple rhymes, jingles, and poems. I think every child should have a book like this to read and be read to. So many of these little ditties will be lost if we don't continue to recite them to our children and grandchildren. This collection of American counting rhymes, jump rope songs, and finger games is one of the best.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can find room for another book of nursery rhymes.

Especially this one. The artwork is interesting, and not all of the rhymes are going to be familiar to you and your child.

Anybody looking for another rhyme to bounce a kid to or to recite or sing to shut them up, you can't spend a better $10 than on this book.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

wonderful rhymes - what a perfect gift book! there isn't a white new mother that wouldn't love it!
The only negative? being as it was done in the 1940s none of the beautiful illoes have non-white people in them.

one question does anyone know what this poem means?
"A knife and a fork!
A bottle and a cork!
that's the way to spell New York."

[Dianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a classic. It's like Mother Goose for America. Rhymes that I remember from my childhood, that I don't remember seeing in a book before:
"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck"
"Yankee Doodle"
"First's the worst, second's the same"
"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear"
"Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around"
"Here is the church, here is the steeple"

This book was published in 1945

[Alyson (Kid Lit Frenzy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need to figure out how to incorporate this one into the curriculum. So many of my ELL's have no clue of these traditional rhymes and yet there are references throughout our language and language arts curriculum.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book and laughed through almost all of it. My mom enjoyed telling me some of the different versions of the rhymes that she knew.

[Jennifer (JenIsNotaBookSnob) · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 7 year old daughter found this book fascinating. We had some fun pointing out how these rhymes and jingles have changed over the years. This book was published in 1945 and it's interesting how the rhymes still in circulation have undergone a few changes or lost entire verses.

Overall though, the book doesn't really provide many rhymes or finger plays that would be fun to use with modern children. It's more fun to use for comparison. I did like that they actually showed the finger plays that went with the rhyme.

Definitely an old-fashioned book and with some rhymes that wouldn't be acceptable to use today.

[Amy Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book filled with old rhymes and exquisite artwork! The Rooster Crows is filled with fun rhymes and games, both forgotten and remembered, with illustrations to match. While some illustrations are modest in their palette (sticking to blues and tans), some full page illustrations make use of what seems to be every color imaginable. The Petershams certainly knew how to keep kids entertained—I could sing the rhymes and look at the pictures all day! Overall, this is a humble book that is perfect for weekends and summer vacations. Great for grades 1-5.

Review cross-listed

[Ice 9 · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://letterstocassiandotherfolks.bl...

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many excellent rhymes and songs. I remember some from being taught by my Mother but others were new to me.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huh. I distinctly remember enjoying this already. Time for a reread so I can give it a proper review!
---
Ok. What to say now. Dated. Some rhymes are very cringe. Some just don't make sense any more. Many are still wonderful. Art is very pretty. I won't say it needs to kept in libraries, though I do tend to prefer archiving to weeding usually.

[Chaitra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm very tempted to give this one star. It wasn't the non-PC rhymes that put me off. 3 years of showing and singing some of these very rhymes to my son, I'm aware that they are really blood-thirsty. Some of them have nonsense words, and I'm fine with that too. But the thing that put me off was the illustrations. I know I'm in the minority in this, but there was something very unwholesome about the kids. The girls were mostly fine - demure, but fine, but I'm not sure what it was about the boys, but they looked a little mean and scary and not exactly little. It's the eyebrows, I guess. The cats were terribly rendered too - I'm sorry to say that they looked like evil hags. Maybe it's just that I read these in the night. I should see if these look better during the day.

I'm not sure if my son likes this particular book. I couldn't get him interested today, but I'll be showing these again tomorrow.

Some other notes:

Some of the rhymes that I didn't know and liked were: "Lazy Mary" (because lol, and how inappropriate for my little one), "Mother May I Go Out to Swim". I even liked some of the weird ones like the Five Rabbits Boasting.

Some rhymes that I did know but were slightly changed, and not for the better: "Ring around a'rosies", "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

This version of Mary and her little lamb is truly terrible.

"Mary had a little lamb,
Whose fleece was black as tar,
Everywhere that Mary went,
They thought it was a b-a-a-r".

I understand the intention, but the execution doesn't work at all.

[Josiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

"As sure as the vine
Twines 'round the stump
You're my darling sugar lump."

—The Rooster Crows: A Book of American Rhymes and Jingles

This book is one of the best at gathering common American nursery rhymes from yesteryear and compiling them into a solidly relevant collection. These kinds of nursery rhymes never really lose their power to influence the minds of the young, and because of that they are a significant shaping factor to the world in which we live. In this particular compilation, the artwork creates a homey, old-fashioned atmosphere that pervades the rhymes themselves and gives them a warmth that they would not have had were the text presented alone.

I think it's great that a book like this can still be enjoyed by kids no matter what generation they belong to, and that it is primarily these basic nursery rhymes that bind our childhoods from past and present together and give our young selves common ground on which to stand. I would happily recommend this book.

"The rose is red, the violet's blue,
Sugar's sweet and so are you.
If you love me as I love you,
No knife can cut our love in two.
My love for you will never fail
As long as pussy has a tail."

—The Rooster Crows: A Book of American Rhymes and Jingles

[Alexandria · Rating 3 out of 5]

The illustrations in The Rooster Grows definitely supported the text by being a reflection of the American rhymes and jingles. Each short rhyme and jingle had its own illustration that helped to establish a setting and define its characters. The dress, hairstyles, and the backgrounds surrounding the characters really solidified the time period that the rhymes originated from. Examples that highlighted the time frame of these rhymes included little details such as the characters wearing bonnets, children wearing overalls, and just the overall color scheme. All the illustrations were pencil drawings that included colors I feel aged them a bit (hues of brown, black, blue, and red). Even the cursive font that was used in the illustrations and headings added to the establishment of the time frame. Nowadays cursive is not all that common with children and a lot of times it is used to represent an older style of writing. In addition to teaching readers about older American tales, this is a great book for them to practice with rhyming patterns.

[Alicia Singleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book carries a collection of well over fifty nursery rhymes, riddles, jump rope rhymes, jingles and hand games. The colors were soft and light as if they were drew and colored with color pencils. While there were many rhymes, riddles, and jingles, not all of them had an illustration to go along with them. Some had a half a page of text with no picture and some had a line of text with a picture. The author and the illustrator seemed to have chosen the text that were better explained by both text and illustrations such as the ‘this little pig rhyme’. While having the text the illustrator include a child sitting on a woman’s lap while she counts her toes as well as the little pigs surrounding the child and woman doing the different actions. This book is a good book when teaching about poems and it is also a good book to learn new rhymes when playing jump rope or playing with your hands.

Petersham, M., & Petersham, M. (1945). The rooster crows: A book of American rhymes and jingles. New York: The Macmillan company.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 1946 Caldecott Medalist is a treasure trove for anyone interested in stepping back into parts of American history through the games and jingles that were popular several decades ago. It's interesting to note how some of them have changed a great deal while others have not, and some are still in favor while others have been relegated to the past. The book is divided into Rhymes and Jingles, Finger Games, Rope Skipping Rhymes, Counting-Out Rhymes, Games, and Yankee Doodle. Filled with a plethora of these rhymes, many of which are fun to say, to the eyes of modern readers, the book has a dated quality due to the illustrations, some of which are in vibrant colors and others rendered in more subtle shades. I'm not a fan of the organization since there are sometimes several rhyme or jingles on the same page, which can be confusing, while some rhymes cover more than one page. It might be fun to share this book with some of today's jump rope champs so they can note the history behind their chants.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book won the 1946 Caldecott medal, which makes me wonder how bad the other books of this year were for this to win. The only reason I didn't give this one star was because I liked the illustrations. The rhymes were primarily nursery rhymes which mostly didn't originate in America, but rather in England. I'd never heard of most of the counting rhymes and they butchered "Ring around the Rosy." I didn't care for their selection as most were odd or morbid. Recommended for ages 3-6, 2 stars.

There was one rhyme that I hadn't heard of, and wasn't sure of the purpose of it, but I enjoyed it and wanted to share:
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is blythe and bonny and good and gay.