Mother Goose Online

What follows is a very brief selection of the many, many Mother Goose sites available on the World Wide Web. These sites approach the topic from a variety of perspectives and are for different audiences. Some are scholarly while others are primarily suggestions for ways of sharing the rhymes with children. We have not included here sites that use the name “Mother Goose” but are general programs for young children and literacy, not specifically based on the Mother Goose rhymes. Some of the most intriguing Mother Goose sites are electronic versions of older, out of print, editions of collections of these tales.

The Best Known General Mother Goose Site

http://www.librarysupport.net/mothergoosesociety/
This is the official home of The Mother Goose Society, founded in 1987 to encourage a love for the warm tradition of Mother Goose rhymes and Mother Goose's comforting embrace and to promote the annual celebration of Mother Goose Day (May 1st).

Using Mother Goose with Children

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfa/dreamhouse/nursery/rhymes.html
The Mother Goose Pages includes a master list of the rhymes, a bibliography of sources, and suggestions for sharing Mother Goose with children.

http://www.alphabet-soup.net/goose/goose.html
“Mother Goose Express” is one of the better sites of Mother Goose activities for children.

http://www.ga.k12.pa.us/academics/LS/PreK/MotherGoose/Index.htm
It is delightful to see the pre-K students from the Germantown Academy in Ft. Washington, PA in their activities with Mother Goose.

http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek3/mother_goose.htm
“My Nursery Rhyme Pages” is an extensive collection of materials related to Mother Goose, including resources and activities for children.

http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/rimes_and_rhymes.htm
“A Rhyme a Week: Nursery Rhymes for Early Literacy” clearly has an educational focus, but does not destroy the joy of sharing Mother Goose with children.

http://www.mothergoose.com/index.htm
This is a large site containing 362 nursery rhymes, games, crafts, some wonderful “twistful tales” based on the rhymes, and a brief history of Mother Goose.

Mother Goose Books Online

http://trmg.designwest.com/
This site is Joanne Cormier tribute to Blanche Fisher Wright's The Real Mother Goose originally published in 1916.

http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/Mother_Goose_Melodies/
Children's Books Online: The Rosetta Project includes Willis P. Hazard's Mother Goose Melodies.

http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/mother_goose_gems/
Mother Goose Gems published by the McLoughlin Brothers in 1904 is another example from Children's Books Online: The Rosetta Project.

http://www.icdlbooks.org:8080/servlet/BookPreview?bookid=denmoth_00150056&summary=true&route=80&lang=English
Denslow's Mother Goose, 1901.

http://www.kellscraft.com/mothergoose/mothergoosecontent.html
A web version of The True Mother Goose - Songs for the Nursery, Or, Mother Goose's Melodies for Children.  Notes and Pictures by Blanche McManus.  Published by Lamson, Wolffe and Co., Boston. 1895.

http://oaks.nvg.org/sa2ra4.html
A selection from Mother Goose in Prose by L. Frank Baum. This book is also available online as part of Project Gutenberg at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=5312

http://www.2020site.org/baby_opera/index.html
The Baby’s Opera: A Book of Old Rhymes With New Dresses by Walter Crane. London: Frederick Warne & Co. Included with each Rhyme is its musical accompaniment.

http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/Three_Blind_Mice/
Complete Version of Ye Three Blind Mice by John W. Ivimey, Illustrated by Walton Corbould. London & New York: Frederick Warne & Co., nd.

International Sites

http://poetry.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.indiaparenting.com%2Frhymes%2Fenglish%2Findex.shtml
The India Parenting Site has a collection of more than 80 English rhymes and smaller collections of rhymes in half a dozen Indian languages.

http://www.sun-inet.or.jp/~syasui/mglibrary.html
This page, created by a Japanese English teacher and a member of the Mother Goose Society of Japan who became interested in the rhymes when she found references to them in other English publications, is interesting for its list of some of those literary allusions.

Interpretations

http://www.messybeast.com/nursery.htm
“The Role of Cats in Nursery Rhymes” includes various interpretations of rhymes featuring cats.

http://www.rooneydesign.com/gallery.html
A graphic designer includes a “Goose Gallery” that shares the “grown-up stories behind these childhood rhymes.” Often he accepts traditional explanations, but viewer commentaries may challenge, offer alternative explanations, or refer to “urban legends” sites.

http://www.attachemag.com/archives/11-03/features/story2.htm
“Rhyme and Reason: The Careful Plucking of Mother Goose” pokes holes in the presumed meanings of some of the rhymes.

Curiosities & Just for Fun

http://hazardkentucky.com/more/goose.htm
In case you haven’t seen the Mother Goose house in Hazard Kentucky, click here.

http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/exhibit/cabell/goose.html
This curious tidbit from the archives of the Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries reports a child’s Mother Goose birthday party from April 14, 1884.

http://www.offthemark.com/mothergoose/mgoose01.htm
These Mother Goose cartoons by Mark Parisi are just for fun.

Modern Versions of Mother Goose

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/mgoose.htm
“Mother Goose Goes Electronic” in these new versions of Mother Goose for the digital age.