cover image Hey, Diddle, Diddle: A Children's Book of Nursery Rhymes

Hey, Diddle, Diddle: A Children's Book of Nursery Rhymes

Linda Bronson. Henry Holt & Company, $17.95 (48pp) ISBN 978-0-8050-6754-5

Lively clay, paint and collage illustrations accompany more than 60 time-honored rhymes in Hey, Diddle, Diddle: A Children's Book of Nursery Rhymes, selected and illus. by Linda Bronson. A spread of multiethnic children, sporting fur-trimmed purple, pink or yellow hats, join hands around a mulberry bush, their three-dimensional figures casting shadows against a white backdrop; Little Miss Muffet appears in a pleated pink apron and felt skirt, with a clay bowl for curds and whey while, beside her, a purple spider descends the pinstripe wall. Peter Piper, Little Bo-Peep and Wee Willie Winkie also people this exquisitely designed volume.