This vintage picture book of nursery rhymes illustrated by Rene Cloke was published by Award as part of their Fairyland Favourites series in the 1970s and 1980s. My copy is the eighth edition, published in 1984, and the first edition was published during or before 1978 (see Summary, availability and reprints below for an explanation of first publication date). For a list of the other books in the series (and links to my reviews) see Award Fairyland Favourites Series.
Cover, front and back matter
This picture book is a large hardcover book of approximately 33 cm high by 23 cm wide. It has a gorgeous blue cover, the images on the front featuring characters that appear in the illustrated rhymes within the book. The back cover features an image of the old woman tossed up in a basket, above the Award Publications logo and the ISBN (0 86163 045 9).This image also appears on the front cover, and is a close match for the illustration inside the book.
The front and back endpapers of the book are a plain teal blue. The loose front endpaper features a bookplate image of Ricky Rabbit riding an autumn wind (from Cloke's Nursery Stories collection), and publication information. The publication information appears to be an accidental copy from another Fairyland Favourites book, at least for the ISBN, which conflicts with the ISBN on the back cover as it's written as 0 86163 047 5 (this is actually the ISBN of the Fairy Tales collection).
The back loose endpaper is a bright yellow and lists other books in the Fairyland Favourites series:
The title page shows several of the nursery rhyme characters from later illustrations, on the banks of a river or lake.
There are 23 nursery rhymes spread across 15 pages (unpaginated).
There is no contents page or index of first lines, so I've compiled one below (see end of post).
Rhymes and illustrations
The rhymes appear fairly standard, with no obvious differences from other representations. I was unfamiliar with "They that wash on Monday", "Bat, bat, come under my hat", "Rain on the green grass", and "Where have you been all the day, my boy Tammie?"
The illustrations depict children with delicate features in various styles of historical garb, and happy, active animal characters.
A different child (or two) interact with the natural world for each of the months of the year in "January brings the snow", from a child throughout snowballs to children admiring a Christmas tree. I've always loved this January – December rhyme, though I find it somewhat poignant as the descriptions of the months are all backwards for me, living in the Southern Hemisphere.
Moving from months to days of the week, as is so often the case Monday's child is shown to be admiring their own features, Tuesday's child is dancing, and Thursday's child is on a journey. Something new was Wednesday's child, dressed as a hotel porter and dropping a plate of dishes, and Sunday's child blowing bubbles. I particularly liked Friday's child giving a biscuit to Saturday's child at work.
The little girl who can be horrid is shown with her doll's head and arm pulled off and a book torn apart (diabolical!) and Tommy Tittlemouse, often illustrated as a mouse, is instead a young boy wearing a puffy fisherman's hat, although the expected "Private No Fishing" sign appears in the water.
The illustration of the old woman tossed up in a basket shows children in older historical dress than the rest of the collection, wearing Elizabethan ruffs and finery as they call up to the old woman. The background is a watercolour green, the moon sitting very low in the sky to emphasise the old woman's lofty height, and a rabbit also joining the watch.
"They that wash on Monday" is accompanied by a young girl pegging freshly washed dolls' clothes on a low line, the dolls sitting naked alongside her basket.
"Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" merges sky and sea with blue watercolours, fish, a kingfisher, and a gull.
"I saw a ship a-sailing" shows a young boy in a sailor's outfit looking out to sea. Half the mouse-sailors are on the ship, but the rest are on land, unloading the boat, while the captain, a mallard duck wearing a naval captain's hat and wearing a pink packet on his back, looks through a golden spyglass.
"Where have you been all the day, My boy Tammie?" shows a mother in purple dress, with white skirts decorated with purple flowers, sitting outside and sewing while her young son, dressed as an elegant 18th century gentleman, leans in to speak with her. The girl he is courting is shown to be very young indeed (about five years old), but hard at work in the kitchen, rolling out dough.
I enjoyed the final image of Anthony Rowley's frog mother, dressed in a yellow dress with a white neck kerchief and patterned apron, looking very cross and calling him back as he goes off wooing without her say so.
Summary, availability, and reprints
This is a lovely collection of rhymes, with beautiful illustrations by Rene Cloke. There don't seem to be many copies for sale online, but the whole collection is reprinted in full in Rene Cloke's Bedtime Book of Fairytales and Rhymes, which is a lot easier to come by. That book is copyrighted 1978 and clearly explains that its contents first appeared in other books, including A Treasury of Rhymes, which means that A Treasury of Rhymes was first published during or before 1978.
My Treasury of Nursery Rhymes – Contents
- Curly locks, Curly locks
- The Robin and the Wren
- Bow! wow! wow!
- Monday's child is fair of face
- Hark, hark! the dogs do bark
- Handy Pandy, Jack-a-Dandy
- There was a little girl who had a little curl
- Little Tommy Tittlemouse
- There was an old woman tossed up in a basket
- "How many miles to Babylon?"
- They that wash on Monday
- Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
- January brings the snow
- I saw a ship a-sailing
- I had a little hen, the prettiest ever seen
- Lavender's blue, diddle diddle, lavender's green
- Bat, bat, come under my hat
- One misty moisty morning
- Rain on the green grass
- Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on
- "Where have you been all the day, My boy Tammie?"
- Jack and Jill went up the hill
- A frog he would a-wooing go