I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me: Favourite Rhymes from an Irish Childhood
Following on from last year’s I Am The Wind, Sarah Webb is back with another verse anthology, this time with The O’Brien Press, and one ‘designed to be read to children from birth upward’. This jaunty, lavish book, lovingly illustrated by Paul Delaney, is a cornucopia of silliness and sentiment. Composed to a significant degree of items that are the common inheritance of our culture, it also contains nursery rhymes, nonsense poems and song lyrics from specific authors, from Longfellow to Lisa O’Neill.
Throughout the books pages the three Rs likely to captivate young children are evident - rhyme, rhythm and repetition. As the subtitle suggests, there is often a keenly Irish flavour to proceedings, partly, as mentioned in the book’s introduction, due to material from the National Folklore Collection – rhymes from schoolchildren dating back to the 1930s. Whilst there is certainly some (to this reviewer) novel verse included, there are also many abundantly familiar inclusions. When Irish Eyes Are Smiling or Jingle Bells may be common coin to us jaded grown-ups, but who’s to say they won’t be full of strangeness and wonder to the average two year old?
Delaney’s colourfully schematic illustrations are a pleasure to behold, and constitute a large part of the books cosy, daft and sometimes antiquated charm. There is enough material here for countless bedtimes, and, bar the odd decapitation or threat of mortal gluttony, plenty to give little ones the sweetest of dreams!
