Speaking of foreign accents, huzzah for the Brits. We have a couple of British nursery rhyme books that we’ve picked up for Katherine (either in Britain before she was born or since then here on remainders tables). They are a lot of fun, both because of some of the obscure rhymes they still carry (“See-Saw, Margery Daw”), and and because of others they have which are, these days, verboten in Right-Thinking Progressive Child-Friendly books.
For example, take such a horrible work as “Georgie Porgie”:
Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry;
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.
Imagine! A nursery rhyme that describes a wanton act of sexual harrassment, and which therefore encourages kids to do it! (Not that I ever read it as a child as meaning that I should emulate Georgie Porgie — just the opposite, in fact — but, obviously I was sucked in by its Partriachal Man-as-Enslaver of Womynkind attitude, otherwise I would understand that it is an Evil, Evil Thing.)
Shocking. Positively shocking. And don’t get me started on the rampant Speciesist Animal Cruelty melded with Inhuman Disdain of the Differently-Abled found in “Three Blind Mice.”
The British books also sometimes use odd verses. For example, in one the (only) verse they use for “Pop Goes the Weasel” is:
Up and down the City Road,
In and out the Eagle,
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop goes the weasel.
Of course, rather than showing folks blowing their money at a tavern, they show a little car driving to London, an eagle flying overhead, and a weasel making what one must assume is a popping noise with his paw. But it’s still fun, and Katherine will have plenty of opportunity to learn the more “normal” first verse elsewhere.
Just part of our ongoing campaign to make sure our little one grows up at least a little eccentric.