1946 - The Rooster Crows

The ninth book to be awarded the Caldecott Medal was The Rooster Crows: A Book of American Rhymes and Jingles by Maud and Miska Petersham, published in 1945 by Macmillan, now a part of Simon and Schuster.

The title says it all.  This book contains many classic nursery rhymes, finger games, and skipping rope songs that we will all remember from childhood, and some that have been lost to more recent generations.

Who were Maud and Miska Petersham?

Photo of Miska and Maud Petersham taken sometime in the 1950s

Maud Fuller was born in Kingston, New York on August 5, 1890.  She was the third of four daughters and her father, a baptist minister, was a direct descendant of the physician on the Mayflower.  Maud graduated from Vassar College in 1912 and went on to study at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, now known as Parsons The New School of Design, and, from there, went to work at the International Art Service, a graphic design firm in New York City.

Miska was born Petrezselyem Mihaly on September 20, 1888 in Torokszentmiklos, Hungary.  After studying at the Royal National School of Applied Arts in Budapest, in 1911 Miska moved first to London and then six months later traveled to New York City and came through Ellis Island in 1912.  He quickly found work at the International Art Service, where he met Maud Fuller.  They married in 1917.

Maud and Miska moved to Greenwich Village and with the help of their friend, Willy Pogany, a Hungarian illustrator, they found their first work in children's book illustrations which then led to steady commissions.  In 1923, they bought a house in Woodstock, New York.

From the 1920's through the 1950's, the Petershams were considered pioneers in the world of children's book illustrations.

Maud is quoted in Books Are By People: Interviews With 104 Authors and Illustrators of Books for Young Children  as saying "At first we illustrated books written by others, but often we found no place in the text that lent itself to illustration, so we decided to plan a book of our own with both pictures and text." And they published their first book, Miki: The Book of Maud and Miska Petersham, a story about their young son, in 1929.

The Petershams went on to write and illustrate nearly 50 other books including: Auntie and Celia Jane and Miki, The Box with Red Wheels (written for their grandchildren), and Story of the Presidents of the United States of America.  Unfortunately, it appears that nearly all their books are out of print, but they could be found at used bookstores, online, or in your local library.

Miska passed away on May 15, 1960 and Maud on November 29, 1971.

In 2012, WoodstockArts published Under the North Light: The Life and Work of Maud and Miska Petersham by Lawrence Webster.  Webster grew up in Woodstock and played with the Petersham's granddaughter, Mary.  According to Webster, the Petershams complimented each other perfectly.  Maud drew on the left page while Miska drew on the right; Maud did the research while Miska took care of all the criticism.  To learn more about what Webster had to say about the Petershams, check out this review of a presentation she gave at the New York Public Library.

What surprised me, was that according to Webster, The Rooster Crows  was not considered to be the Petersham's best work, even though they won the Caldecott.

The Illustrations

I suppose I was surprised by Webster's statement about The Rooster's Crow not being the Petersham's best work because I just assume when a book wins the Caldecott, it is.  Just because this book was chosen to win means it was the most "distinguished American picture book for children" of that particular year, not necessarily the best illustrations ever done by the illustrator.  But then all art is subjective and when each person looks at a work of art they are all seeing something a little different.

There is no plot in The Rooster Crows to discuss, it contains a collection of rhymes and jingles, finger games, rope skipping rhymes, counting-out rhymes, and games, ending with the full length version of Yankee Doodle.

There are plenty of old standbys that we're all familiar with including: How Much Wood Would A Woodchuck Chuck, This Little Piggy, A Bear Went Over The Mountain, and Little Jack Horner.

There were some I had never heard of like:

Bat, bat, come under my hat,

And I'll give you a slice of bacon.

And when I bake, I'll give you some cake,

That is, if I'm not mistaken

and

Black cat sat on the sewing machine

Looking fine and handsome,

Ran ninety-nine stitches in his tail

Ad then he ran some.

And then there were some sayings that I didn't know were a part of a rhyme:

Two's a couple,

Three's a crowd.

Four on the sidewalk

Is never allowed.

I have the feeling that depending on your age and where you live, you may know some of these and others may be new to you.  But the illustrations are quite beautiful.  They're soft and lovely.

 I loved the animals they drew and it appears to me the Petershams excelled in showing emotion, not just on human faces, but animals as well.

"Yankee Doodle"
Look at the expression on the boy's face.

Plucking daisy petals for "One I Love"

"Little Sally Waters"

Illustration for the full version of "Yankee Doodle"

And when it came to the finger games, the Petershams included illustrations on how to play the game:

When I was a child, I loved poetry and this was definitely the kind of book I would have loved reading through.  This book would be a lot of fun to read with a young child, the nursery rhymes and games are just plain silly enough to keep them entertained.

If this is considered by critics to not be the Petersham's best work, this definitely makes me want to look up their other books to see what tops the illustrations in The Rooster Crows.

1946 Caldecott Honor Books
Little Lost Lamb, illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, written by Margaret Wise Brown (using the pseudonym Golden MacDonald  Sing Mother Goose, illustrated by Marjorie Torrey, music by Opal Wheeler My Mother Is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World: A Russian Folk Tale, illustrated by Ruth Gannett, written by Becky Reyher You Can Write Chinese by Kurt Wiese