goldjay's Full Review: Sarah Josepha Buell Hale - Mary Had a Little Lamb
Mary Had a Little Lamb is a beautiful book that I have shared with many preschool children I have taught over the years as well as with my own children. There are so many wonderful things about this book that make it one of my favorites. The story was originally written by Sarah Josepha Hale. This book was photo-illustrated by Bruce McMillan who did a fantastic job with the pictures. I don't even remember where I originally got this book but I have enjoyed sharing it with many children over the years!
The Story
This is the story that we all know about Mary and her lamb. It can be put to music and the story can be sung to the familiar tune. This is how I tend to read this story to children. I may not have the best singing voice but children always seem to listen a little better when a story is sung than when it is read straight out.
So, Mary has this lamb that followed her everywhere. One day, it followed her to school and made the children laugh and play. So, the teacher had to take it out of the school. Still the lamb stayed near and waited for Mary. All the children wanted to know why the lamb loved Mary and the teacher told them it was because Mary loved the lamb!
What Makes This Book Special
This book is particularly nice because of the photo-illustrations that are used in it. They are just spectacular! They show a real live girl and a real lamb along with other children and the teacher in lesser roles. The photos are so well done that it makes this such a believable story! There are full page photos on many pages and others have been made smaller to fit two on one page.
The little girl who is playing Mary is really named Sarah. She is an African-American child who wears glasses. This just makes her such a real person to so many kids! I read this book when I taught preschool for Head Start and so many of the kids there were surprised to see Mary portrayed this way. Mary is dressed in bright yellow and pink clothing and the lamb with her was bathed before every photo shoot to make sure her "fleece was as white as snow" as the song says.
In the pictures, Mary really does appear to love the lamb. She holds and cuddles it in some pictures. In others we see her playing with the lamb and feeding it. We see Mary in school, looking distracted that the lamb is not there with her. And, we see her when she is reunited with the lamb, looking quite happy again!
Extras
The end of this book has some extras for the adults who read this aloud to children. It has some information about the book and some information about how the pictures were taken. It talks about how usually a subject's glasses will be removed for such a photo shoot but they left Mary's glasses and worked with filters to avoid glares since they felt that the glasses were an important part of the child.
This book also gives the words to the original song that was first published in 1830. It has an additional two verses that are not popularly sung today and are not included in this book. It also shows how originally the lamb was referred to as "he" rather than the "it" that is used in the song today. This book also includes some information from McGuffey's Old Second Reader, where this poem appeared.
My Thoughts
I love the way that Mary is portrayed in this book. She is a real person and doing real things like playing and going to school in this book. I think that it is important for all children to see that there are children with different colored skins and people that wear glasses and things like that.
I love to sing this book with children and have done so in many preschool classrooms I have taught in. I think that it is fun to be able to sing and the children do seem to enjoy it even if I don't have the best singing voice! They also enjoy looking at the pictures of this book and singing the song on their own. Since most know this song already, they feel like they can "read" this book by themselves after one or two read alouds. That is fun and builds confidence in kids!!
Recommendations
I would definitely recommend this story book for all children. It seems most appropriate for preschool and kindergarten children however, I would not discount the book for older children too. The photos alone make this a book worth looking at and even though the children might think they are too big, they will enjoy looking at this book!
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