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Education Books Media Book Reviews

The Space Child's Mother Goose 91

Posted by timothy from the what-down-mother-goose dept.
Compulsive reviewer chromatic takes a break this time from the ultra-serious by reviewing a kids' book to help fill the need for reading material aimed at kids which don't treat them as idiots. It also sounds like good reading for post-kids, in the same way that Dr. Seuss is.
The Space Child's Mother Goose
author Frederick Winsor
pages 100
publisher Purple House Press
rating 9
reviewer chromatic
ISBN 1-930-900-07-4
summary Rhymes and verse for budding (or budded) cosmologists and scientists.

The Scoop

In the mid-fifties, a poetry and science fiction fan teamed up with a pen illustrator to produce The Space Child's Mother Goose. Decades later, enough people still remember this book fondly that existing copies sold for up to $150 apiece. Purple House Press, a small Texas publisher, continues to reprint influential books from that era. Their reprint of this classic doggerel (in the best sense of the word) will appeal to children of the 50s through the 00s.

What's to Like?

This is a clever, fun book. Instead of making up alien names, or substituting "robot" for characters in traditional nursery rhymes, the scientific concepts are integral to the poems themselves. Consider this excerpt:

Three jolly sailors from Blaydon-on-Tyne

They went to sea in a bottle by Klein.
Since the sea was entirely inside the hull
The scenery seen was exceedingly dull.
Fortunately, the glossary in the back has (brief) explanations of some of the weightier terms. Combined with a good encyclopedia, there's nothing here an inquisitive eight-year-old couldn't decipher.

Winsor pays tribute to the classics, postulating how the king's men could have saved Humpty Dumpty with a time machine, or waxing eloquent about the theory Jack built. There's a general air of... excitement, maybe, surrounding the book. (Something else reminds me of Kit Williams' Masquerade riddle, though I can't put my finger on it.)

The illustrations nicely complement the text. The simple, anthropomorphic birdmen seem oddly familiar, like undamned Bosch characters. They're appropriately Spartan, though with plenty of important details. The gestalt evokes the feel of an old Tom Swift novel. Maybe it's the matter of fact, "let's fly to the moonbase in our rocket car" post-Sputnik optimism.

This is a fine book for children, and adults with child-like spirits. It might stir a latent interest in astronomy or mathematics. Even if it doesn't, the new and interesting words and witty rhymes are worth memorizing. This book's been due a reprint for several years.

Be sure to catch the recurring poem about a chronologically gifted black hen. It's reprinted in French, German, Greek, Swahili, and Chinese, with pictures to match.

What's to Consider

Some kids might not like the book -- it takes a certain kind of mindset to absorb new concepts normally reserved for middle-school geometry class. It's hard to resist trying it out, though. Find an elementary school-aged friend or relative and spend an hour working through the riddles.

The Summary

Hemos recommended this book as "cute." It is. It's not cute in a saccharine way. It's almost as if the author were reciting his poems to a straight-laced Nobel committee -- before turning backstage to give the rest of us a great big wink. He's hoodwinked the establishment.

You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
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The Space Child's Mother Goose

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  • I love Daniel Pinkwater's books. Great non-idiot children books (probably for kids a bit older than this book is intended for -- junior high or a bit earlier).

    • Everybody should read "The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death."
      • Agreed re: Pinkwater (being a minor collector). His works usually mix off-beat humor, food, New Jersey, and science fiction in a blender so you can suck it up with a straw.

        He has a weekly radio show on NPR called "Chinwag Theater" that is worth listening to, although it usually spends more time playing a variety of music from the 20th century and clips from old radio comedies and the like.
        This is the cheapest way to get into his work, and to hear him read it himself (with Scott Simon helping out.)

        The URL: http://www.chinwagtheater.org/ (warning, uses flash.)

        My personal favorite of his continues to be "Education of Robert Nifkin" (more of a young teen book) although "Borgel" is also quite good, incorporating space, time, and "other" travel (travelling between dimensions.)

        Most of his books pop in and out of print, although compilations of many are available.
    • I rather like Berke Breathed's childrens books, including Red Ranger Came Calling and Edwurd Fuddwupper Fibbed Big, but I have this sneaky suspicion that these books are actually more of a hit with the Bloom County/Outland crowd.

      As soon as I could read by myself I got caught up in those old Reader's Digest hard bound classics (which you don't see much anymore), some where a bit grim, but I suspect, like myself, childrens ability to grasp plots and follow stories is much greater than a lot of adults give kids credit for. I think the fact there were 7-8 year olds reading those Harry Potter tomes should attest to that.

      I think when I have kids I'll start them on Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Fritz Lieber and JRR Tolkien before they get into kindergarden.

  • Its about time someone stopped patronizing 'kids'. My 13-year old nephew is a regular slashdot reader, and occasional poster. Nobody can tell his age, and he quite frequently provokes a thoughtful discussion, and gets modded up for being Insightful or Informative.

    It is one of the great things about the internet: nobody knows you're a dog :-)

    More seriously though, one of the problems with children's books is that children develop their reading skills at different times. So we need easy books but on subjects 15-16 year olds will find interesting, likewise we need books for 5-8 year olds which do not treat them like morons, but which have material suitable for their age.

    I remember reading Beowulf when I was 9 years old, and I thought it was pretty cool, but it was slightly above my age range.

    • Yeah, that's the whole thing. It seems like a lot of kids are growing up a *ton* earlier than I did... It's about time some material comes out to show for it. Any other suggestions people can come up with for books aimed at the 5-9 crowd would be great because I'm sure that SOME slashdotters have children. Having them read O`Reilly books on perl and BSD, though educational, probably isn't entertaining.

      Hell, my 5 year old cousin can play (and beat) solitaire. I'm sure she could figure out this book. Maybe I'll look into getting it for her.
    • I had my first web page when I was 11 or 12. I couldn't convince my dad to get an Internet account, so I signed up for a 10 hour free trial with the local BBS to show my dad how cool it was. Finally, I convinced him to get a paying account. I turned 13 a few months before COPPA came into effect, but my friend wasn't so lucky -- his birthday was 1 month after, so Geocities deleted his site. I'm 17 now, and I no longer have my own webpage (Webjump went under, XOOM, turned into NBC, don't care to pay for hosting). At any rate, I would have loved this book as a child. I learned to program at age 8 or 9, I think, in gw-basic. I started building computers when I was 7 or 8. My mom taught me how to play Road Rally USA when I was 4 (she worked at a school), and I went from there... Taught myself DOS, ... Lots of fun. I think that this society should, rather than cater to the vast majority of morons out there whose idea of fun is sitting in their deep couch whilst inhaling "Cheesy Poofs" and watching the Dallas Steroids whomp on the Greenbay Poppers. I feel cheated out of an education. I'm cynical. So what?
    • Uh... I'm asking for a friend (grin)

      I don't think any 9 yr old would grasp old english very well
    • I fully agree, i can remeber reading brahm stokers dracula in its entirety in 1st grade, it took some effort and probably screwed me up for life but it was much better than the drivel that was assigned at the time "Se spot, see jane, see jane play with spot" i always wanted spot to bite jane but he never did:(.
    • So your nephew is a thirteen year old dog? Is that in dog years or people years?
  • ...A&E was running a Biography-type show on Sesame Street, and it got me to thinking: when did (children's) television lose its sense of wonderment and education? Teletubbies and Barney are what passes for kid-friendly "educational" TV these days? No wonder we have to pump our rugrats full of prozac 5 years after they watch that tripe.
    • If you want wonderment and education, check out 'Little Bear', 'Bear in the Big Blue House' or 'Blue's Clues'.

      All are worth a gander.
    • well, I would guess that you don't have kids of this age, and are just postulating based on "popular" opinion.

      Seseme Street is still on, though I find it quite a bit more lame than it was when I was a kid. And they brought back Zoom about 3 years ago. Electric Company is still dead, and that kinda sucks. I loved that show.

      However, all is not lost. There are shows like Arthur, Dragon Tales, Clifford, Caillou, Sagwa and the like that deal with social skills. There are shows like In Between the Lions (this show rocks!) and Reading Rainbow which focus on reading skills. Noddy is kind of a cool show. And were still just on PBS.

      If we hop over to Nick Jr., we get shows that promote problem solving and "audience" participation with Dora the Explorer and Blues Clues. And more social shows like Franklin and Little Bill and Maurice Sendak's Little Bear.

      On Disney, we have some other cool shows like PB&J Otter and Out of the Box.

      It's not all bad...and having cable or a dish helps, but just because all you hear about is teletubbies and barney doesn't mean all of the kids shows suck that bad.
      • Seseme Street is still on, though I find it quite a bit more lame than it was when I was a kid. And they brought back Zoom about 3 years ago. Electric Company is still dead, and that kinda sucks. I loved that show. You forogt 3-2-1 Contact, I wish my kids could see that show too.
  • You know, Salman Rushdie published a new book this year. He's a widely respected, if controversial author with an incredible feeling for the zeitgeist. I haven't read this latest book, but I have heard that it includes many references to the internet. Would this qualify as slashdot enough? What would it take to get you guys to review a book for adults?

    I know you have a lot of teenagers on the site, but that doesn't mean you actually have to cater to them. Encourage them to stretch themselves a little. It can't hurt.
    • You know, there's a Slashbox on every Review page, including this one, that says

      Thinking about writing a book review?

      Be sure to review our guidelines [slashdot.org] before you start.

      So why not review that Rushdie book yourself?

    • ...and some of us have (or are planning to have) geeky children

    • Look man, I know you haven't yet come to terms with the fact that the entire world doesn't share your narrow opinions on what should and should not be posted on /., but lemme tell you something: there are people who read /. who have kids and very much appreciate reviews such as this one. Rushdie might be a geek, but he's not a nerd. There are *hundreds* of books released each year that are more important than Rusdhie's, and a great many of them deal with the Internet. But I'm not going to clamor for /. to review them. I subscribe to the New York Review of Books for that.

      Sheesh.

      Besides if you want to see it reviewed then YOU review it. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that if you do a good job it'll get posted.

    • > What would it take to get you guys to review a book for adults?

      Um, I'm VERY happy to see a review of a book like this that I can buy for my kids. This is the first time I think I've ever seen a web review of a book like this. Where other than Slashdot am I going to find something like this?

      THANK YOU SLASHDOT!

      As for you, OPP - Why don't you leave Slashdot and stick to some "News for nerds who are adults and don't ever plan to have children" site or something.
      • You're welcome.

        The odd part is why Hemos passed this one along to me, instead of keeping it for himself and his little ones. (I don't have children.)

        Maybe he got an autographed copy?

        • Hello chromatic!

          We *loved* your review of The Space Child! Thanks so much for taking the time to write it and letting people know it is available for their children.

          No, we couldn't send hemos an autographed copy because they aren't ready yet. BTW, Marian Parry (the illustrator) was thrilled to see the book reviewed here. Her son and son-in-law are both big fans of slashdot.

          Jill
  • Along the same lines (a "reissue" of a space/science-oriented work for kids from the 1950's) I can highly recommend They Might Be Giant's Why Does The Sun Shine [amazon.com].

  • Quoted in MTW (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There's actually a quote from this book in the back of Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler's "Gravitation", the standard graduate level textbook in General Relativity.
  • There was once someone who said give me a child before the age of 7, etc. Infact, I think several people made comments like this.

    The idea of a children's book devoted to science and technology is deliscious. But then you can have all sorts of childrens books that can subtlely influence the mind of a child.

    For example how about a child's story about a man who wanted to own all of the windows in the world?

    "I do not care if I am a louse,
    You cannot have a window in your house
    Not round, or short, or fat, or square,
    You cannot have a window, not anywhere"

    ;)

    • There was once someone who said give me a child before the age of 7

      Michael Jackson?

    • I normally don't troll about spelling, esp. on reasonably confusing words, but given the subject matter I guess it's necessary. This text added to countermeasure the anti-lameness countermeasure.
  • "Possible probable my black hen,
    She lays eggs in the relitive when,
    She doesn't lay eggs in the positive now,
    Because she's unable to postulate how."

    I still remember that rhyme from when I first read the book in the early 70's during my larval stage programming. Thanks for posting a link. Now I will finally get a copy :)
    • My Favorite: (not sure if it's in this book)

      There once was a lady named sprite;
      Who traveled much faster than light.
      She left one day,
      In a relative way;
      And returned the Previous night.

      Pat

  • I loved this book when I was growing up. I have no idea where my parents got a copy- it must have been well out of print by the time I read it- but it's wonderfully funny book. It's great to read that it's back in print; I think I'll pick up a copy to give to my niece.

  • I read a friends borrowed copy of this when I was about 40, and loved it. My kids (9 and 11) were alternately mystified and amused. I was continually amused. Unfortunately the copy belonged to a friend who was just having kids of his own, and the cruel bastard wanted it back.

    At last, a copy of my own - and the kids are sophisticated enough mathematically to get it all. Maybe I'll get three, one for me and one for each of them.

  • Pricing (Score:2)

    by swm ( 171547 )
    The review quotes up to $150 for a used copy, but that's probably for a hard cover in good condition.

    My wife told the dealer she didn't care about condition, and got a dog-eared paperback copy for something like $30 or $50.

    OTOH, the slashdot effect could drive prices considerably higher.
    • I wanted to buy the Roguelet's ABC for my kids, and was disappointed to discover that not only was it never printed as a book, but only a few letters of the alphabet were ever written.

      Maybe completing the alphabet could become a collaborative literary project. SourceForge, anyone?

      T:
      One big monster, he called TROLL.
      He don't rock, and he don't roll;
      Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies.
      He just Love To Eat Them Roguies.
      -- The Roguelet's ABC

  • When I was about six or seven, I used to love reading Richard Scarry books [amazon.co.uk], especially the ones about how things work. I loved taking things to bits and putting them back together -- or at least trying to! I always hope that when I have children, they'll be interested in those kinds of things too, so I can build them the cool robots I just learned about in class today! ;-)

    Just wondering, in the experience of the parents (or researchers) among us, to what extent are children's interests affected by the interests of their parents?

    • Not much. My dad's a weatherman and a school teacher. My mom's a school teacher. I'm a geek who hated school and feels cheated out of a decent K-12 education. I don't blame my parents, just the beast they work for. Maybe I'm a "special case," but I'm not interested in most of the things my parents are interested in. Oh, you were referring to children? Well, I'd say up until about age 5, when kids go to school, children will like most of the same things their parents like.
    • _The Space Child's Mother Goose_ works on an entirely different level that the Richard Scarry books.

      The Richard Scarry books reduce everything they involve to a child's level and language.

      _The Space Child's Mother Goose_ takes an adult's language (actually, a highly technical math-science-oriented adult's language) and makes clever poems using the words and concepts. The resulting poems often mimic kid's poems, but don't make the mistake of thinking that they're "just" kid's poems.
    • Greatly. My father was into computers when the only kind around was a main frame. I am into computers and have seen the birth of the PC to what it is today. My oldest son will be 8 in Dec. 2001 and he is very into computers (installing software and and figuring out things) not so much on the programming side. He know what he wants and asks me to get it for him then it done. I have limited the use of the internet because there is more to life then a computer terminal, but the need to know is still there. I also have 2 other children (6 and 2) the 6yr old shows potential for computers, too early for the 2yr old. she uses the mouse as a phone (remember Star Trek). My thoughts are that what we do, get excited about, or are willing to allow our children to do and see makes all the difference in the world.
    • Only to the extent that parents limit their children's exposure to only what interests the parent. It's as much the interests of the child as it is the influence of the parents. The idea is to balance the two.

  • Mr. Tompkins (Score:4, Informative)

    by Amazing Quantum Man ( 458715 ) on Thursday October 25, 2001 @10:33AM (#2477851) Homepage
    As a kid, I enjoyed George Gamow's "Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland". I recently introduced my 11 year old daughter to Mr. Tompkins. (So yes, to whoever it was, /.'ers *DO* have kids!).

    It's a great introduction to modern physics.

  • Regarding the old edition that has been out-of-print for so long:

    It's really a crime to let books out of print sell for over $100. Publishers should react to this and re-edit the volumes but to my great despair, not much is done from their part.

    I came to look for some great books that I wanted to buy again and was so sad to see their prices being so high and therefore unaffordable to me. I contacted the publisher at the time and the response I got were that it was not a big market enough for them to do the reprint. Even when I mentioned that these books had a regular waiting line of 10 people on half.com with a minimum price tag of $400-$600 (or about 500x what the book was selling at the time.)

    Unfortunately, with them having the publishing rights, there is not much one can do to solve this problem.

    PPA
  • I've had my eye out for a second hand copy of this for years. Now that it is being reprinted I will go and order a copy for my neice. I loved this book when I was younger, along with "Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland" by George Gamow, which is less silly and a useful introduction to relativity and quantum physics for kids of all ages (and also now in reprint in paperback [amazon.com]). I'm so glad to hear that they have rereleased this book :-)
  • I'm delighted to see that someone's reprinted SCMG! Click through to Fatbrain now and buy it!

    The book is definitely aimed at children and not adults, but the concepts are interesting and cool enough that it's interesting geek reading too. I still occasionally find myself reciting erudite-yet-silly bits from it, and my original copy is one of my most treasured posessions.

    The book is full of translations of "My Black Hen" into a zillion languages -- they're enough to make any kid think about philosophy:
    Probably, Possible, my black hen.
    She lays eggs in the relative when.
    She doesn't lay eggs in the positive now,
    Because she's unable to postulate how!

    There's no guarantee that SCMG will make your kid an astrophysicist -- but it'll sure help...

  • if you can find it, is "A Stress Analysis Of A Strapless Evening Gown," edited by Robert A. Baker. It consisted primarily of articles from the Journal of Irreproducible Results and The Worm-Runners Digest, along with verse including some excerpts from "The Space Child's Mother Goose" (including "Three Jolly Sailors") and a poem about the neutrino from John Updike. Subjects of the essays, as I remember, include the title (interesting reading for a ten-year-old male back in the sixties), linguistic reform, logic, psychoanalyzing various of the rockets used in the early space program, and simulating the behavior of a randomly-designed computer by immersing a caged cat into a tank of water ("it exhibited an initial period of apparently random activity, but eventually settled into a quiescent state").

    It's out of print but your local library may still have a copy, or you can track it down from a used bookseller.

  • I too encounterd that book in my youth .. and found it again here in the local library. So don't complain about high internet prices before checking out the free options!

    I'm hoping to animate it some time - and make up a few more poems myself. I could even put out an edition of THE SIGNS OF MOTHER GOOSE: Semiotic Rhymes for Children...or some book where all the poetry is in M68K assembler,FORTH or JCL or whatever.

    [bottles of beer on the wall, anyone?]

    Fans of this book can pop over to Jef Poskanzer's home page to hear ALL off the Singing Science records (not just Space Songs, whence TMBG copped "Why Does The Sun Shine?".) visit: http://www.acme.com/jef/science_songs/ [acme.com]. GLory to Tom Glazer, Dottie Collins, Marias and Miranda [maraisandmiranda.com] educating you with folk songs of Space, Weather, Nature and More Nature, Experiments and Energy & Motion!

    The other books I read a lot in this vein as a child were the two anthologies "Mathematical Magpie" and "Fantasia Mathematica", books of short stories, poems, cartoons,jokes and songs with a Mathematical theme, edited by Clifton Fadiman.

    You may have read a lot of these before, but there they are all in one place. (Nine Billion Names Of God, The Feeling Of Power,--And he built a Crooked House, The No-Sided Professor .. )

    Rudy Rucker edited a similar (mostly inferior and a little redundant) collection called The Mathenauts much later.

    • ran an essay by George Johnson titled "Quantum Stew: How Physicists Are Redefining Reality's Rules" [nytimes.com] In its first paragraph, it mentions "Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland" and tells of one of Mr. Tompkins weird experiences when he dreams he is in a world where Plank's constant has been altered. The essay ran on Tuesday, October 16, Section F; Page 4; Column 2; Science Desk
    • Here's another nerd who loved this book as a child. I spent many years as an adult searching for a copy, and finally found one (for just a few dollars) at the Brattle Book Store in Boston.

      I'm glad to see that SCMG has been reprinted, but worry that it will be lost on today's youth.

      Steve
    • OMG, someone besides me remembers "Fantasia Mathematica"! "Twas' Euclid and the Theorem Pi//Did plane and solid in the text//All parallel were the radii//and the angle convexed."

      Thanks for mentioning the author; I think I have a date with ABE....

  • The Phantom Tollbooth. I loved this book when I was a kid, and I wish I could find my copy so I could read it again as an adult. It sounds like the coverage of mathematical concepts covered in PT isn't quite as advanced as in SCMG (which I haven't read), it still deals with interesting stuff (the nature of infinity, some logic, etc) in a really cool universe.
    • The Phantom Tollboth was one of the first books that I read that really captured my imagination and curiosity about math and language in a not so abstract fashion.
    • I agree, it's a wonderful book! If you can't find your copy, don't worry, it's not out of print.. you should be able to find it on Amazon, or abebooks.com (independent booksellers network).

      Additionally, a quick search on google turns up some interesting links:

      An interview with the author
      http://www.salon.com/books/int/2001/03/12/juster /

      The book as an interactive story
      http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/24 35 /phantomtoll-main.html
  • Another good book is The Ants Who Took Away Time by William Kotzwinkle (Doubleday, 1978). The summary from the copyright page: "A tribe of giant ants steal the Great Timepiece and cause time to stand still throughout the world." If you've got a kid who likes science and/or scifi, this is another title you may want to pick up if you notice it in a used book store.
  • ...like this in a long time. This book sounds like it may have actually been decently inspiring [I hope not a manner simmilar to `jonathan livingston seagull']. Seriously, though, read some of the earlier non moderated comments. The initial response was of a caliber to often absent on slashdot these days.

    Oh well...

  • I posted a review on this book TWO MONTHS
    ago and it was rejected, so there.

    Next time listen to me.

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