Diddled

"Hey Diddle Diddle" is not my favorite nursery rhyme. It doesn't even make my top ten list. It can't hold a candle (even a Jack-jumping-over-the-candlestick candle) to "The Three Little Kittens" or "Hickory Dickory Dock" or the best of the best - "Pop Goes the Weasel".

Really... "Hey Diddle Diddle" just can't compare. It's verse is more confusing than the usual nursery nonsense, and the rhythm doesn't quite work (I find myself trying to make laughed a two syllable word to follow the pattern of the preceding long line), and the ending is a let down. Why, oh why, does the dish run away with the spoon?

That is the question that Mimi Grey answers in The Adventures of Dish and Spoon - but this title falls flat for me in comparison to her Traction Man books (which are too funny to miss).

And even David Wiesner's (my hero!) tribute in The Three Pigs isn't enough to save this rhyme for me.

But Rachel Vail has succeed in redeeming the "Diddle". In Over the Moon which features clean-lined, hep-cat illustrations by Scott Nash, we are seated in a theater, observing a dress rehearsal of a soon-to-open production. Cat (in his too cool yellow glasses and black turtleneck - can you dig it?) and Dog are ready to perform, but Cow is having some problems with the stage directions, to the frustration of the beret-wearing monkey director . The snappy, dialogue - all in squared off speech bubbles - is funny for adult and kid readers alike:

Cow (shaking the director's paw): Mr. Diddle Diddle. I'm a great fan
of your work.

Monkey (surprised): Are you? Well... Call me Hi.

Cow: Call me Cow.

Monkey: Thanks. So anyway, small point, but - the Cow jumped OVER the
moon.

Cow: Uh-huh. And boy am I sore.

Monkey: No! You jumped under! That was the cow jumping UNDER
the moon. See on the instant replay?

I'm sure you can see where this is going - but it is a lot of fun trying to get there with this cast.