Rock-a-Bye Baby

By Jeanette Winter

For hundreds of years, these two nursery rhymes have delighted children. Now Jeanette Winter's warm, evocative illustrations make these classics as delightful to look at as they are to share with... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Board book
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0152021329
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Clarion Books
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 4.5" x 0.8" x 4.5"

Customer Reviews

An original, thoughtful, enjoyable interpretation

. Why have generations of illustrators heartlessly dumped this poor baby, for no explainable reason, and left it to its fate, when Jeanette Winter's dreamlike denouement is obviously the way to go? Her appealing interpretation of the traditional lyrics and melody that have become a familiar part of our cultural heritage is sweet and simple: Against a background of blue and purple evening shades, a baby in a basket enters the peaceful scene carried by an adult woman who sets it under a tree then dozes off beside it. A stork gently airlifts the alert baby, in its blanket-sling, to a comfortable nest in the tree above and tenderly watches over it with her own chicks. All of them then doze off and sleep through wind rocking the cradle-nest, until the bough breaks (all birds wake in alarm and safely fly while the baby slumbers on in freefall.) The woman below wakes, extends her arms, and receives the baby, safe and contented, calmly awake again in eye contact with her. Tiny dependent humans count on us big people to tend to their basic needs. Their world-view, particularly the parts of it we grownups supply in little ways, should embrace the assumption that we, and eventually they, will nurture babies, catching and holding them as necessary to keep them secure. Sharing Winter's charming little book with older babies is a pleasure. It feels right.

Rock-a-Bye Baby, a book for the very young

Little ones, 6 months and beyond, rarely attend to books. However, the combination of bright colors, just the right amount of words on each page, and a reader or singer who can animate the text makes this a wonderful choice. It takes an old favorite sleepy time rhyme and puts it into a new format that will delight.