Book Review: SCHOOLYARD RHYMES: KIDS OWN RHYMES FOR ROPE SKIPPING, HAND CLAPPING, BALL BOUNCING, AND JUST PLAIN FUN

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sierra, Judy. 2005. SCHOOLYARD RHYMES: KIDS OWN RHYMES FOR ROPE SKIPPING, HAND CLAPPING, BALL BOUNCING, AND JUST PLAIN FUN. Ill. by Melissa Sweet. New York: Alfred A. Knopf: an imprint of Random House Children’s Books. ISBN: 0375825169.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
SCHOOLYARD RHYMES: KIDS OWN RHYMES FOR ROPE SKIPPING, HAND CLAPPING, BALL BOUNCING, AND JUST PLAIN FUN is not a story with a plot, but a compilation of 50 classic English language rhymes brought together by Judy Sierra. With the combination of nonsense, rude, silly, and love rhymes, this book invites read alouds and active participation for children of any age.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
From nonsense rhymes such as “Anna Banana" and “Silence in the Court” to rude and crude rhymes such as “BURP! Pardon me for being so rude” and “My mother, your mother lives across the street” to just down right silly rhymes such as “I love myself, I think I’m great” and “The King of France, lost his underpants,” Sierra has compiled a wide range of rhymes that allows children to easily listen to and remember the rhymes and allows adults to reminisce about their time spent on the playground resisting these rhymes while playing with their friends.

Melissa Sweet, the illustrator, adds fun and creative illustrations that add to the wackiness of the book. For every rhyme Sweet uses a mix of illustration techniques to create her illustrations. She uses the painterly techniques of watercolors and pencil sketching in combination with the graphic technique of creating collages of cloth to make the various pictures in the book. To draw the attention of the reader to the illustrations, she has even taken the rhymes written on the page and made them a part the illustration by making the featured rhymes a picture frame, a candied apple stick and more prominently a jump rope. This in combination with her great use of expression on the featured characters faces adds to the silliness of the book and creates a fun read for children and adults.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL review: “Sweet's animated watercolor-and-collage illustrations fill the pages with expressive faces, thin lines of verse shaped into jump ropes and borders, and hilarious interpretive scenes from the rhymes. This is a definite winner, as it will be enormously popular with children.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY review: “Schoolyard Rhymes: Kids' Own Rhymes for Rope Skipping, Hand Clapping, Ball Bouncing, and Just Plain Fun by Judy Sierra contains 50 rhymes perfect for recess or after-school play…”

5. CONNECTIONS
*Divide children up into groups and assign them one rhyme and act out in front of the class. If doing this activity with older children, let the older children go down to the younger grades and teach the students they rhyme with the movements.
*To help increase reading fluency, place several these rhymes on chart paper and practice repeating the rhymes with students. After students are confident with rhymes, at recess bring out the jump ropes and encourage children to say rhymes as they are jump roping or playing games with one another outside.

Other books with rhymes and chants for children:
Dunn, Sonja. GIMME A BREAK, RATTLESNAKE!: SCHOOLYARD CHANTS AND OTHER NONSENSE. Ill. by: Mark Thurman. ISBN: 9780773756960
Opie, Iona Archibald. MY VERY FIRST MOTHER GOOSE. Ill. by: Rosemary Wells. ISBN: 9781564026200