The 48 melodies Alec Wilder has contributed to this garland of song are beautifully complimented by Maurice Sendak's distinctive full-color drawings. Many of the verses chosen by editor William Engvick had never been set to music before the composer created these melodies for them. Other rhymes were chosen from material that has been sung for centuries, but Mr. Wilder has provided even the traditional tunes with delightful new arrangements.
Maurice Sendak captures all the warmth and tenderness of the songs: his pictures perfectly illustrate the old-fashioned humor of Mother Goose rhymes, the nonsense of James Thurber and Lewis Carroll, the reverent mood of William Blake, and the exuberance of Robert Louis Stevenson.
A glacne of the contents page tells everything that need be told about the freshness and originality of the selections. A moment at the piano is enough to confirm the sweetness of the songs and the simplicity of Mr. Wilder's arrangements. And on every page Maurice Sendak's shady pastures, his haunting scenes, his starry night skies, his ruddy-cheeked children and their pillow fights, carry us back to that enchanted land where all lullabies and night songs dwell.
