O is for Old

        (My theme for this year’s A to Z Blog Challenge is traditional English language nursery rhymes, and their block printed illustrations.  Don't forget that you can find all the other A to Z blogs on the Master List.)

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.

So she gave them some broth without any bread,

And whipped them all soundly, and sent them to bed.

        In general I’m not much of one for “improving” the classics, and there are those who argue that it’s actually healthy to give children stories with a dose of manageable horror so that they can learn to grapple with negative emotions.  It has also been my experience that in general healthy children are far less horrified than adults by this sort of thing.  However, I did tweak this one in my book, because frankly it isn’t logical.  Anyone with so many children would surely want to make bedtime as easy as possible, and a beating isn’t much of a lullaby.  I know, I know, nursery rhymes are seldom logical, but unlike living in a shoe, which is delightful fantasy nonsense, this particular piece of illogic isn’t absurd enough to be fun.  So in my book I replaced the last two lines with these:

Mother Goose says she whipped them and sent them to bed,

But I think she told bedtime stories instead.

        And that’s what’s happening in my illustration (the first one in this post).  As far as I know, all the illustrations of this nursery rhyme show the outside of the shoe house, but I wanted to show the family inside, listening to their stories.  It’s a bit of a challenge to depict the inside of a shoe!  However, it is a lot of fun to imagine how to design a shoe house.  As for the shoes in different illustrations, there’s a fair variety of styles.  Most newer illustrations seem to use a boot, which certainly would be a larger house for this large family.  Some illustrations show a woman’s shoe, and others a man’s.  I modeled mine on a Doc Martens boot, not that you can really tell from the inside.

        Did you notice the boy peeking out from the space by the heel in the third illustration?

        There are plenty of other Old women and Old men in nursery rhymes.  Keep your eyes open for them.  Yes, there will be a quiz.

        I think the Old Woman may be reading bedtime stories about shoes.  Remarkable or magical shoes feature in a number of fairy tales: Cinderella’s glass slippers, seven-league boots, the 12 Dancing Princesses’ dancing slippers, Dorothy’s silver or ruby slippers, Puss-in-Boots… Can you think of any others?

        A final note for impressionable children: Be sure to wipe your shoes on the mat before entering a house, even if the house is a shoe, and take them off altogether if that’s what your parents or hosts prefer.

[Pictures: The Family Who Lived in a Shoe, rubber block print by AEGN, 2003;

Wood block print from Mother Goose’s Quarto of Nursery Rhymes published by McLoughlin Bros., nineteenth century (Image from International Children’s Digital Library);

Wood engraving from Mother Goose’s Melodies, published by C.S. Francis and Company, 1833 (Image from International Children’s Digital Library);

Color wood engraving by Philip Reed from Mother Goose and Nursery Rhymes, 1963;

Detail from Nursery Rhymes, wood engraving by Gwenda Morgan, 1970 (Image from Kevis House).]