Mother Goose In Prose

Mother Goose In Prose was L. Frank Baum’s first published children’s book, released in 1897, three years before The Wonderful Wizard of Oz would make him famous. The premise is simple and clever. Baum took the classic Mother Goose nursery rhymes and wrote short prose stories around them, expanding the few cryptic lines of each rhyme into full narratives that filled in the backstories the verses only hinted at.

Why did the cow jump over the moon? What was Little Boy Blue actually doing when he should have been watching the sheep? Who was Old King Cole and how did he get so merry? Baum took these questions seriously, in the way only an unusually imaginative writer working at the boundary between adult and children’s literature can. The stories are not parodies. They are sincere expansions, rendered in the slightly formal, slightly playful prose that would later become Baum’s trademark in the Oz books.

The book is also notable for its illustrations, which were done by a young Maxfield Parrish in his first major commercial commission. Parrish would go on to become one of the most popular American illustrators of the twentieth century, and the early Mother Goose In Prose plates show his style already developing in interesting ways. For collectors of Parrish’s work, an original 1897 edition is a significant find.

For modern readers, Mother Goose In Prose is most interesting as a window into Baum’s creative process before Oz. The voice that would carry Dorothy Gale through her adventures three years later is already audible here. The willingness to take fairy tale logic at face value and run with it. The gentle humor. The respect for child readers as intelligent people who can handle a real story. For families with young children, the book is a delightful read aloud option that adds depth to the nursery rhymes children already know by heart.