I really loved reading this book. I've always been fascinated by childhood rhymes and the stories behind them. This is well written and down to the level, with some great jokes and quips thrown into every article for each new piece. I'd advise to anyone with even a passing fancy. It's a quick, fun, lighthearted to read write-up of as it says some pretty heavy stuff.

( )

Mildly entertaining

This is an anthology of old nursery rhymes which purports to explain the origin of the rhymes.....many of which have political implications. Of course, there are also a huge number of variants of the rhymes that have been used or developed over the years as well. This complicated the interpretation of the rhymes. I have somewhat mixed feeling about the book. I don't think it's especially scholarly. For example, with the rhyme: "Goosey goosey gander.......
There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers
So I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs"
Roberts simply interprets this as having sexual meanings with the idea that "goose" refers to a "prostitute"....whereas other commentators draw attention to the fact that it is probably related to Catholic priests ..who if found in priest holes etc were likely to be thrown down the stairs......or to the actual case of Cardinal Beaton who would not submit to the covenanter's demands and was thrown down the stairs.
So interesting, not especially reliable or scholarly, and Roberts throws in some of his own amusing writing touches for good measure. (Some work...some don't....at least for me).
I rate it as three stars. Easy reading. But I don't think I'll keep it. ( )

As I read this I compared each verse, and the theories of its origins (and, sometimes, subsequent applications and adaptations) to [b:The Annotated Mother Goose: With an Introduction and Notes|440528|The Annotated Mother Goose With an Introduction and Notes|William S. Baring-Gould|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387742644s/440528.jpg|429331]. By and large, they agree closely. This book is much shorter, but adds in some interesting British history (both ancient and recent) and humor (with a semi-helpful glossary).

Consider it a 'sampler' of a larger work, of which AMG is just one of many available. Roberts used clip art from Dover Publishing to aptly illustrate this. (AMG uses illustrations from anonymous woodcuts, and from Parrish, Greenaway, Caldecott, and Rackham.) Roberts' brief bibliography does not mention AMG, but then, there is actually a lot of material in this field.

The difficulty is, once you start seeing meaning you can find it anywhere, and people have been looking for a long time."

Jack may have jumped over a candlestick to prove his fitness as part of a job application process. "Before you dismiss [that] as a flight of fancy, [think of] some of the absurd management-training courses... in vogue. In fact, a book called The Pagan Way to Human Resource Management would surely be a great success."

The London Bridge that Lake Havasu was created for is not the original, the one that lasted many centuries. It is the one that John Rennie designed poorly in 1832, which was replaced by the current less attractive but more functional one in the 1970s." ( )

I bought this because I saw a friend's post on it and it sounded interesting. Plus I'm a sucker for a good title.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really live up. And the subtitle is way off. Rather than "The Reason Behind the Rhyme," it should be "Apocryphal Stories and Historical Gossip Tangentially Related to Nursery Rhymes." But I suppose that lacks a certain . . . clichéness. (Wow. How's that for getting my snark on?)

But I sound a lot more disappointed than I actually am. I didn't have any real reason for high expectations; it's not like my friend was saying it was the book of the year or anything. And the title was, of course, stolen from a Smiths song. So I wasn't terribly let down or anything. I had hoped for him to stay a bit more focused, though. Often it seemed like he was taking every opportunity to go off on some barely related tangent. I'm not much a fan of that kind of rhetoric, so I usually found that annoying. If you are a fan of it—and plenty of people are, it's nothing to be ashamed of—then you'll probably love the book.

It did seem like he kept telling the same stories over and over, but I suspect that's due to (a) my lack of knowledge/interest concerning British royals and (2) the fact that said royals keep getting into the same kinds of scandals over and over, generation after generation. ( )