Mother Goose on the Loose by Leo Dillon

Dillon, Leo. 2007. Mother Goose on the Loose. Orlando: Harcourt.

The numbers are at the center of this lively, off-beat collection of Mother Goose rhymes. If you never considered how many of the traditional nursery rhymes you grew up with involved counting; then this book will open your eyes to the wonderful world of numbers in Mother Goose. Cavorting through the book, in and around the numbers, are Diane Dillon's beautiful gouache on watercolor paper illustrations. Every kind of animal imaginable, some dressed fit to kill, some completely uncovered, does its part to bring Mother Goose to life. Frolicking across, down, over and through the pages are men in donkey heads riding donkeys and pigs, witches, babies, and those two little blackbirds Jack and Jill sitting on a hill in tophat and bonnet, respectively. Children in preschool through second grade will be fascinated by the outlandish activity in this new twist on some old favorites; some familiar and some not so familiar. They will want to revisit this Mother Goose with the numbers on the loose again and again to see what they might have missed the time before.