The Orchard Book of Nursery Rhymes

Bibliographic Information: Sutherland, Z. (1990). The orchard book of nursery rhymes. New York, New York: Orchard Books.

Annotation: A collection of classic nursery rhymes accompanied with illustrations befitting the original time period in which they became popular.

Genre: Poetry

Grade Level: N-2

Readers Who Will Like This Book: Young children and others who enjoy the rhythm of the rhyming poems as well as some of the silliness of the selections.

Personal Response and Rating: I rate this book a 3. This books contains a large number of nursery rhymes, many were familiar with a few that were new. The illustrations complement the rhymes and lend to the feeling that these rhymes are from a time gone past.

Prereading Question: What is your favorite nursery rhyme?

Reading Strategy Connection:

A. Reading Strategy - Picture Carousel

B. Description of Strategy - The teacher places pictures around the room which relate to the story. Students then move around the room individually or in pairs to examine the pictures. Each picture is numbered and students may be given a guide to emphasize certain aspects of the images the teacher wants to stress. Afterwards, students meet in small groups to share their impressions or observations regarding each image.

C. Rationale - In my experience, many children are not read nursery rhymes like the ones in this book. I think it would be interesting to place illustrations from some of the rhymes in the carousel not only to challenge students to make inferences about what is happening, but to expose them to historical drawings that may have both familiar and unfamiliar qualities .