You Read to Me, I'll Read to You

Hoberman, M. A., Emberley, M. (2005). You read to me, I’ll read to you; Very short Mother Goose Tales to read together. New York: Little, Brown and Company-Time Warner book Group.

            This children’s picture poetry book is the third in a series of three read-aloud volumes that readers of any age may enjoy.  Written in short verses that are color coded and arranged so that it is easy to distinguish parts for the different readers, each poem is complete on a single or double-spread page.  There is no need to turn pages once a particular reading has begun.  This volume uses common nursery rhymes as the point of departure for verses with a playful twist.  The author recommends that the original versions of the rhymes be read first to contrast with the new versions.  As Humpty Dumpty tries to persuade a doctor to fix his broken shell, Baa Baa Black Sheep sheds his wool, Little Miss Muffet befriends the spider beside her, and Old Mother Hubbard’s dog phones the butcher, the author’s use of alliteration, rhyme, and repetition serve to make the stories interesting and fun for reading aloud.  Choral reading is encouraged.  The silly illustrations are paintings of cartoon-like characters that mirror the text content.

   

We read each page

To one another.

You’ll read one side,

I the other.

            After reading the rhymes together, students may be encouraged to write and illustrate their own imaginative versions of these and other common rhymes.  They could act out the parts.

            Question:  What if...?