The Adventures of Simple Simon: Retold and with Pictures - Hardcover

Conover, Chris

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374369216 ISBN 13: 9780374369217

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1987

Synopsis

Presents an illustrated version of the simpleton's misadventures. Hidden in the story are characters from sixteen nursery rhymes.

About this title

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 2 An exceptionally appealing treatment of the tale of Mother Goose's perennial simpleton. Conover has edit ed the 12 verses judiciously, dropping and recombining lines and adding a few words and phrases of her own. Miracu lously, there is no jarring change of tone. As they always have, Simple Si mon's comic failures contrast reassur ingly with a child's growing ability to get along in the world. Conover pre sents Simon as an endearing ``pump kinhead,'' literally a vegetable boy wearing a court jester's cockscomb cap. He inhabits a highly colored Eliza bethan world complete with a Tudor castle, a Renaissance country fair, and a cast of costumed animal friends from every corner of the earth. Conover's palette is extremely rich, and every de tail is thoughtfully chosen and lovingly executed, giving unity to the episodic verses. The book proceeds from sunny afternoon to starry night and, in a paral lel progression, from coppery fall to co balt blue winter. The illustrations can be ``read'' without text, and readers will be rewarded with new discoveries each time they return to them. Tucked deftly into almost every illustration are miniature scenes from Mother Goose. These delightful asides add a game ele ment to the book, inviting readers to hunt for 16 different nursery rhymes (a list is appended). An imaginative jour ney unparalleled in any previous visual interpretation of the rhyme. Carey Ayres, Port Washington Public Li brary, N.Y.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

Conover embellishes the story of Simple Simon (who met a pieman going to the fair) with a festival of distractions. It's almost impossible to follow the rhyming story from beginning to end, as a caravan of animalsstorybook charactersdescends on the fair by foot, camel and ship. Because many small subplots are hatched in the illustrations, readers can spend much time flipping back and forth to see what's happening to whom. The artist uses a wide range of rich autumnal and wintry hues; folkloric details infuse the pictures with charm. Some of the things to look for include Mother Goose characters peppering pages and the endpapers, a house made of pies, a tiny Miss Muffet in cornrow braids, a snail in four hats and a backpack, a curious cabbage leaning out of the vegetable cart to follow a wayward turnip, and hundreds of other touches in this celebration of not one story, but many. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0374369216
• ISBN 13: 9780374369217
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 29