Celebrated picture book creators Chris Raschka and Vladimir Radunsky
offer one possible answer to the age-old question: Who was Mother
Goose?
We all love to hear Mother Goose rhymes and riddles. But did you know
that there was a real Mother Goose who lived in Boston more than three
hundred years ago? In 1692, Elizabeth Foster married a widower with ten
children. His name was Isaac Goose, and after they married, Elizabeth
became Mother Goose. She and Isaac had four more children together, and
to help her care for such a big and boisterous family, Mother Goose sang
songs and lullabies and made up rhymes and poems. Her nursery rhymes and
stories were published at a print shop on Pudding Lane in Boston, though
no copies of her book exist today. In a book featuring some of Mother
Goose's best-loved works, Vladimir Radunsky's bright and humorous
illustrations and Chris Raschka's rhyming poems tell the little-known
story of the Goose children, Isaac, and Elizabeth herself -- the Mother
Goose of Pudding Lane.