Mary and Her Little Lamb: The True Story of the Famous Nursery Rhyme

Moses (Raspberries!) proves that going behind the music needn't uncover sex, drugs, or nervous breakdowns. He introduces readers to the real Mary of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," a 19th-century Massachusetts farm girl named Mary Elizabeth Sawyer who nurses a newborn lamb back to health and wins its woolly, unwavering loyalty. The lamb did indeed follow Mary into school%E2%80%94"bold and proud, just as if she had always belonged there"%E2%80%94on the same day that a visitor named John Roulstone was in attendance. In his era's version of a tweet, Roulstone penned a pithy verse about the incident that proved tailor-made for repetition, embellishment, and musical adaptation (an afterword explains how the poem went viral, so to speak). Moses's spot art can feel a little wooden, but his talent opens up in the full pages and spreads, where his doll-like characters, flattened perspectives, and expansively detailed settings show that the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree (his great-grandmother is Grandma Moses). Even children too young to be nostalgic for nursery rhymes will enjoy this pop culture lesson wrapped up as a trip back in time. Ages 1%E2%80%93up. (Sept.)