Pop! Goes the Nursery Rhyme

Bird (The Great Santa Stakeout) and Tsurumi (There’s No Such Thing as Vegetables) imagine the giggly-good havoc wrought by ending myriad nursery rhymes with “POP! Goes the Weasel.” The story’s canon-tweaking mischief-maker—introduced in the book’s first featured rhyme—is a weasel in pink overalls who leaps into the framing of each classic final line, generally with arms and legs akimbo. Countering the repeated action with protests, a pearl-clutching secretary bird desperately tries to maintain decorum (“Oh my goodness, no, no, no. There are no weasels with Jack and Jill”), leading to a final scenario that employs jack-in-the-box tension. Throughout, the characters are elaborately choreographed: Mary, of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” fame, appears as a well-heeled but spunky mutton matron, the little lamb as her cosseted, coolly confident charge. Gaily upsetting the proverbial apple cart again and again, the creators craft a raucous celebration of rule- breaking that will have young readers eagerly anticipating each rhyme’s incoming “POP!” An author’s note concludes. Ages 3–5. Author’s agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. Illustrator’s agent: Stephen Barr, Writers House. (Mar.)