Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (A 3D Puppet Wonder Book, Grosset & Dunlap, 1968, pictures by T. Izawa and S. Hijikata)
This vintage board book of the nursery rhyme "Here we go round the mulberry bush" was published by Grosset & Dunlap as part of their 3D Puppet Wonder Book/Puppet Storybook collection. This wonderful collection features pictures of puppets staged and photographed by Tadasu Izawa and Shigemi Hijikata. For a list of other books in the series (and links to my reviews) see Puppet Storybooks/3D Puppet Wonder Books.
Cover and title page
The cover is white, with green title and black and green series title, and use of orange lines and borders. The front cover features a central 3D lenticular image of a boy and girl dancing around the mulberry bush.
There are no separate front and back endpapers – the front endpaper is the beginning of the double-spread title page, and the back endpaper is the final scene of the rhyme. The title page features a central photograph of a mulberry bush, with puppets posed in different actions around the edges of both sides. Only a few of the poses appear in other photographs in the book.
Copyright information appears on the other side of the front loose endleaf, with the nursery rhyme beginning on the following page. A photograph of girl, dog, and boy puppets dancing around the mulberry bush runs across both pages. Like the other books in the series, the illustration copyright date is shared (in this case, 1968) but the publication date is unclear – likely 1968 as well. No copyright or attribution is given for the text.
The back cover provides a list of Puppet Storybooks (unnumbered) and a description of the series.
Text (unattributed)
"Here we go round the mulberry bush" is an English children's nursery rhyme and action song first published by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps in 1849. There are many variants. One popular version starts with a cold and frosty morning and follows a theme of preparing for the day: washing our face, combing our hair, brushing our teeth, putting on clothes, etc.
In this version, the first verse is "so early in the morning" (rather than a cold and frosty morning), and the theme is chores/activities done on each day of the week, concluding with a visit to church:
- washing the clothes so early Monday morning
- ironing the clothes so early Tuesday morning
- mending the clothes so early Wednesday morning
- sweeping the floor so early Thursday morning
- scrubbing the floor so early Friday morning
- baking the bread so early Saturday morning
- going to church so early Sunday morning.
Pictures by Izawa and Hijikata
As with the other books in this series, the illustrations are staged scenes of puppets – in this case, multiple scenes of a brother and sister performing their chores, then finally dressed in their Sunday best, walking down a path towards a church.
The scenes are bright and friendly, showcasing rooms with bright walls or wallpaper, chequered floors or brightly coloured carpets, and vivid blue skies outside. A little white dog and a grey tabby cat accompany the children in many of the scenes.
The little girl is golden-haired and first appears in a pink dress with a red cardigan and pink ribbon in her hair. The pink ribbon remains for the next scene, where she wears a different, floral pink dress and a yellow apron to do the washing. The yellow apron remains in the next scene, where she wears a white blouse and irons clothes, but her hair is now in pigtails tied with red ribbons and she wears slippers on her feet instead of red Mary Janes. When mending clothes, her hair is loose once more with the red ribbon and she wears a new dress, of red strawberries. That dress is later paired with a yellow pinafore apron when she sweeps and scrubs the floor.
Her brother is brown-haired and often appears in a blue and white striped t-shirt. He wears blue shorts and sometimes blue dungarees, sometimes a yellow sweater, and once a red shirt and blue trousers. Harmonising yellow touches also come through in the boy's socks and, in one image, through striking yellow roses in a porcelain jug against the blue sky beyond the window sill. For their visit to church, the boy wears a royal blue cap and matching shorts and buttoned coat; the girl wears a long red coat with a red bonnet.
Most of the scenes show the children earnestly at work, but one amusing scene shows the sister mending her brother's dungarees while he's still in them!
Blue sky, yellow flowers, and mending in action: Summary and availability
This book of children keeping house is a lovely integration of rhyme and image and evokes a pleasant sixties vibe while still appealing to a modern reader.
There appear to be copies available online, and it is also available alongside the story of Hansel and Gretel in Grosset & Dunlap's Twin Puppet Storybook series.