Nursery Rhymes Your Mother Never Taught You

Nursery Rhymes Your Mother Never Taught You brings wry humor in the form of parodies to twenty-four of the world’s best-loved nursery rhymes. The parodies in Part I are a reaction to the people and politics of the 21st century. They are matched with the traditional nursery rhymes that are found in Part II. These original versions include some bizarre historical theories as to derivation; also, their first known publication dates are given. All the rhymes are divided into four sections: Food, Fun, People, and Politics. At the end of each section in Part I there are three thoughts to ponder for each parody. They range from such as, ‘What does food have to do with marital bliss?’ to ‘Who was the bully in your school?’ Caution: discussions are recommended for good-natured groups only!

As a child Tremain was nurtured on nursery rhymes, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. The eventual realisation that he had swallowed fantasy as fact left him with a conviction that you can believe no one, and a desire to write these nursery rhymes for grown-ups, containing too many truisms for his mother ever to have read him.

Gloria Manson returns home from London to find her mother has become a penitent recluse. While working in the village pub and flirting with old school mates Gloria tries to bring her mother back into reality. Some friends from London come down to the village and help Gloria with her mother and cause her to restart her London career in a new location. Most of the action takes place in Fotheringham Manor Estate where school friends Gary and Freddie work. This Estate is the home of the Lord family where son Daniel is the resident manager. Hikers trespass through the Estate causing damage and upsets to both Daniel and his forester girl friend Katya. These hikers and the new Education Centre on the Estate mean there are more people in the forest and this constrains some of Gloria's plans. Daniel's sister, Samantha is a partner in Heritage Adventures, a company who helps tourists find their pasts, and she in turn upsets some of Gloria's activities. Over time the various parties clash through misunderstandings, jealousy, confessions, and fights and ultimately murder.

IPPY Award Winner From nonsense to lessons learned, these 45 rhymes include the very well known (Itsy Bitsy Spider) and the somewhat familiar (Hickety, Pickety, My Black Hen). The truly fantastic pictures speak more than a thousand words as artist Scott Gustafson riffs in paint on themes present and imagined in each verse. Nursery rhymes are classic, and so are some of the artist's interpretations. But other paintings are surprises, like an anthropomorphic baking bear, a pelican sea captain, and Peter Piper as a pug on two legs. Welcome to a world where "There Was a Crooked Man" is not about a hunchbacked senior but rather a madcap, double-jointed dandy who might be "crooked" in more ways than one. Jack (Be Nimble) is a leaping cricket and Yankee Doodle a fun-loving chipmunk on a fullsize horse. Scott Gustafson's unique style, influenced by legendary book illustrators Arthur Rackham and N. C. Wyeth, makes this a volume to be treasured by children and illustrated-book lovers of all ages.

What kind of woman leaves three young daughters at home every morning to spend her days representing convicted murderers and rapists? That is the question criminal defense attorney Claudia Trupp confronts in this sharp and riveting memoir as she seeks answers—for herself and, mostly, for her daughters. Every working mother faces the challenges of balancing work and home, but the nature of Trupp's work makes her juggling act all the more precarious—and at times hilarious and bizarre. Trupp's domestic anecdotes of life with her kids run parallel to narratives of her most memorable, and often unsettling, criminal cases, each providing a platform to explore broader issues such as faith, perspective, and charm. The navigation of radically different realms—the criminal courts and maximum security prisons where clients serve hard time, and the home front where children demand marshmallows for breakfast—provides thought-provoking and entertaining reading. While the working mother has been a popular subject of fiction and self-help guides, this may be the only book offering a woman's deeply personal and unapologetic account of how embracing a challenging job while simultaneously guiding a family reaps unexpected benefits on both fronts. In a memoir that will resonate powerfully with all women, Trupp candidly conveys to the reader and to her daughters the struggles and rewards of the conflicting roles in her life, the joy she has found in being a mother, and the value of meaningful work.

A Second Helping of Gumbo for the Soul is a collection of essays, stories, and narratives designed to inspire and empower women of color through the use of storytelling and narratives. This second edition is a sequel to the first Gumbo for the Soul and includes more...

In this sequel to her 2000 anthology, Valerie Sanders again brings together an influential group of women whose autobiographical accounts of their childhoods show them making sense of the children they were and the women they have become. The fourteen women included juxtapose recollections of the bizarre with the quotidian and accounts of external events with the development of a complex inner life. Reading and acting are important themes, as is the precariousness of childhood, whether occasioned by a father's financial pressures or the early death of a parent. Significantly, most grew up expecting to earn their own living. The collection includes children's authors (Frances Hodgson Burnett and E. Nesbit), political figures (Emmeline Pankhurst and Louisa Twining), and well-known writers (Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Sarah Grand). Of relevance to scholars working in the fields of women’s autobiography, the history of childhood, and Victorian literature, this anthology includes a scholarly introduction and brief biographical sketches of each woman.

When a child is born, a miracle happens—someone becomes a grandmother! For first-time grandmas, beloved veterans, or grandmas-in-waiting, this warm, wonderful book captures all the joy and humor of one of a woman's most life-altering experiences. Heartwarming observations from such famous names as Margaret Mead, Jane Russell, and Margaret Thatcher; poems to copy and stick on the refrigerator; words of advice to "accidentally" leave on a daughter-in-law's kitchen table, suggestions to smooth the rough times or increase the joy, it's all here to read and treasure. Don't miss . . . • Special things only a grandmother can do • Family history a grandmother can pass on • A precious gift every child needs from a grandmother • Secret satisfactions a grandmother feels • How a grandmother can act even wiser than she is And more!