What Makes a Mother Goose a Mother Goose?

Ethnicity and Universality

Among the hundreds of human images of Mother Goose examined, most were obviously from the UK, the US, or from French translations, and none were women of color. Even the geese were white in all but a few illustrations. The first image below, one of the few exceptions, is a black goose created by an Asian illustrator for a Canadian book. Rojankovsky’s goose from his 1942 collection also has black feathers. Although many children are represented in these books, they too are almost always pictured as Caucasians. In the third illustration an elderly white version of Mother Goose is holding a child of color in her arms while reading to a group of children. (Notice also this Mother Goose’s hat and shoes.) Hopefully, new versions of Mother Goose will more accurately picture the multiracial, multicultural nature of the contemporary world.

Young children of many cultures are familiar with simple nursery rhymes similar to those That English-speaking youngsters refer to as Mother Goose rhymes. Such rhymes, chants, lullabies, and singing and counting-out games serve as accompaniments to everyday activities and point to people and objects familiar in a child’s world. They have survived because of the appeal of their musical and poetic qualities and because they serve as introductions to the worlds of wonder and nonsense so important to the developing imaginations and language skills of children.

Although the language of these playful rhymes and wordplays are not easily translated, there are Mother Goose collections translated into and from other languages. The former are frequently this culture’s rhymes in another language and the latter most often parallel, but very different, rhymes from other cultures translated into English. Some nations, such as India, a former British colony, have taught English Mother Goose rhymes as an aid to learning the English language in their primary schools for more than fifty years. At the beginning of the 21 st century, however, textbook committees began the process of making at least some of those rhymes more attuned to life in India. For instance, Mary and her lamb become Meera and her cat, and “Rain, rain, go away”, which is not a pleasant prospect in much of India, becomes “Rain, rain, come again.”

Some of the illustrations in these textbooks are also changed to reflect Indian culture; other rhymes and illustrations are considered more universal and thus unchanged.

There are a number of English language versions of Chinese Mother Goose collections containing neither Mother Goose nor any of the traditional English rhymes. The titles do alert British and US readers that the verses contained are similar in nature and intent to those enjoyed by young children in English speaking cultures.

Such international versions point to both the universality and the unique qualities of these staples of child culture. Surely the future will bring both verbal and visual images of Mother Goose corollaries from many cultures to more nearly represent the multicultural world in which we live. It is not that we wish to impose the English-speaking Mother Goose on others; rather we hope to locate the characters from other languages and cultures that represent the essence of language and story for young children and attempt to make them available to our children. We also want to make translated versions of our rhymes available to wider audiences of young people and to the adults who share literature with them. Visual and verbal interpretations of other characters, similar to Mother Goose, who symbolize the essence of childhood, may help young people recognize and appreciate the universality as well as the differences in the emergent literary experiences of young children.