[.ca] Monster Goose (ISBN 0152054170)

From Amazon.com:
Something has happened to good old Mother Goose--she's not the same kindly storyteller she once was. In fact, that isn't Mother Goose tapping away at her laptop computer at all. It's Monster Goose! With a diabolical grin beneath her granny glasses and fangs peeking out from her beak, this twisted matriarch wreaks marvelously evil havoc on 25 favorite nursery rhymes. Now featuring ghouls, vampire bats, and cannibals, these verses appeal to the perverse corner in every reader's mind. Just a taste: There was an old zombie who lived in a shoe. She had so many maggots, she didn't know what to do. So she soaked them in soapsuds and painted them green. She'll be giving them out next Halloween. Not for the faint of heart, Judy Sierra's grisly rhymes are accompanied by such fabulously hideous illustrations by Jack E. Davis (the Zack Files series, Bedhead, etc.), any potential nightmares will be diverted by helpless giggles. Readers will delight in identifying the original classic nursery rhymes behind such titles as "Mary Had a Vampire Bat," "Weird Mother Hubbard," "Hush, Little Monster," and "Werewolf Bo-Creep." Sierra and Davis are an ingenious pair indeed. For more ghoulish nonsense, don't miss Sierra's The House that Drac Built. And for still more playful poems, try her Antarctic Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems. (Ages 5 and older) --Emilie Coulter

Wickedly Witty:
It is always a relief for me to read a childrens book that credits children with the experience and imagination to delight in references to things slimey, disgusting or horror-ful without wanting to get the Bounty and the Raid and make it nice. There are no more eager participants in the imaginative exploration of the gross and horrifying than those of the younger members of our species. Unimpaired by experience, not yet socially sanitized, but trusting the covers of a book, children eagerly go with Sierra to that edge between fantasy and reality for the thrill of the near but safely missed slip into true horrors. So if Barny and Mister Rogers kind of make you want to throw up, get down with the kids like Ms. Sierra does and wollow in the splendidly delightful illustrations of Mr. Davis.

The Book Scared My Children:
We ordered the book through school. My 1st grade son can home and anounced that he received his book order and he had one book that would give him bad dreams. I looked through the book and found it was not quite what we had in mind. We were looking for something that would use the same old nursery stories, but with a difference. We wanted somthing to spark creativity and imagination, a look at adapting stories. It wasn't that kind of book. I felt it was scary and inappropriate for a young child. My son didn't want to keep it so we tried to donate it to the school library. The librarian looked at it and said he didn't like to censure books, but this book was just not something they really would like. We threw the book in the garbage.

AVOID:
My 7 year-old daughter brought this book home from the school library. I stopped reading it about half way through because of some inappropriate material. Why would you write a book for grade school children that contains poems about 'drinking gasoline' and 'brushing your teeth with turpentine'? This book is not intended for 12 year olds, who MIGHT be able to determine that the author is only joking. Instead, it is written for the 1st grade crowd. There are much better things for our kids to be reading. Avoid this book.

A Poets Pleasure:
As the mother of a very imaginative young poet who also likes Emily Dickinson, we found this book to be delightful. Having read so very many rhyming book that were beginning to become blaze this was a refreshing change. She still sings the rhymes and so does her older sister. We would recommend this book to anyone with an imagination.

A Fun Twist to Halloween:
My six year old daughter loves Halloween and has a strong imagination, I knew she would enjoy this book the first time I read it in the bookstore, it's funny and witty. The illustrations are great and the poems are kooky and fun.