jethrien

Title: The Space Child's Mother Goose
Author: Frederick Winsor (illustrated by Marian Parry)
Genre: 1950s nursery-rhyme physics SF picture book
Thingummies: 3

Synopsis: Space Age nursery rhymes where the mouse runs not on a clock, but a Mobius strip.

Thoughts: This is exactly what you never expected but were unsurprised to see sitting on the shelf of a physicist whose parents are professors. It caught my eye while visiting a friend, and I ended up reading it over breakfast.

Very strange. Clever, and oddly dated-feeling, as one might expect from something produced in the Space Age. Much of it would go right over the head of a child, but I could see it driving a curious and bright kid to explore a lot of concepts earlier than they might have otherwise. But still, it's hard to figure out who the audience is supposed to be. There can't possibly be that many children-of-scientists, who are the only people I could see being bought this book. The authors are confusing as well. Clearly scientists immersed happily in science fiction, but strangely cynical as well. ("The House that Jack Built" turns into "The Flaw in the Theory that Jack Built", for example, which gets covered in diagrams and layers of obfuscation. Yes, the word "obfuscation" is used in a nursery rhyme.) Not that I am unused to cynical scientists, but the tone of a very cynical poem about advanced physics mirrored after rhymes aimed at four-year-olds becomes an exercise in whiplash.

Honestly, not quite sure how to evaluate this one.