The nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle” is hundreds of years old. Many sources say two hundred years. Some say four hundred (with possible precursors being much older). Because it’s been around so long, lots of people are familiar with it–and one might well wonder what, if anything, is left to be done with it.
Enter Eve Bunting, children’s book writer with over 200 books to her name, and her 2011 picture book Hey Diddle Diddle (illustrated by Mary Ann Fraser). I picked it up because I was curious about picture books based on songs (and I knew Bunting’s work, of course). I entered it with two questions: how did she change the classic nursery rhyme, and is there enough here to justify a whole new book?
The answer is that that the book departs right away–first two-page spread. Instead of “the cat and the fiddle,” we get “the cat plays the fiddle.” This leads to a sequence of animals playing an array of instruments; cow (trombone), whale (drum), seal (saxophone), horse (guitar), pig (piano), camel (trumpet), elephant (bass), mouse (harp–though a bird looks to be joining in, and maybe an idle elephant’s trunk), and lion (flute), with the rhino singing and the dog conducting.
Then a child shows up to “wind up the key,” and reveals that the entire array is a toy orchestra, giving the entire creative chaos a frame, justification, and some unity.
The animal-instrument combos give a lot for kids to anticipate, and there’s a fair visual variety. The overall result isn’t legendary, but it is pleasant, and the book could be read both for that pleasure and to show how traditional literature can be reworked into new forms.
