Myth-Folklore Unit: Nursery Rhymes

Overview. There are many collections and editions of the English nursery rhymes, but this particular edition — The Nursery Rhyme Book by Andrew Lang, with plentiful illustrations by L Leslie Brooke — is my own personal favorite. It is full of wonderful rhymes, and Lang has organized them into some helpful categories, as you will see in the table of contents. Before you begin reading this unit, try writing out a list of all the nursery rhymes you can think of, and then check them off as you read. My guess is that you will find all your old favorites here, along with many delightful new rhymes that perhaps you have never heard before. There are also riddles and games: did your parents play "This Little Piggy" with your fingers or your toes when you were little? That's one of the nursery rhyme games you will find here, along with many more!

Language. As you can guess, the nursery rhymes all... rhyme, and so they are wonderfully fun to read out loud.

Story Length. The nursery rhymes are all very short, with each page containing a selection of rhymes.

Navigation. You will find the table of contents below, and you can also use this link to see the story posts displayed on two pages total: Nursery Rhymes. Click "Older Posts" at the bottom of that page to see the second page.

Read More. The chapters of Lang's book included below are all complete, but there are three chapters I omitted for reasons of space. If you want more rhymes, you can read them online! Here are the links to the chapters that I omitted: Historical RhymesLiteral and Scholastic Rhymes, and Gaffers and Gammers.



READING A:
  1. Nursery Rhymes: Tales
  2. Nursery Rhymes: Proverbs
  3. Nursery Rhymes: Songs, Part 1
  4. Nursery Rhymes: Songs, Part 2
  5. Nursery Rhymes: Riddles
  6. Nursery Rhymes: Paradoxes
  7. Nursery Rhymes: Charms and Lullabies
  8. Nursery Rhymes: Games
READING B:
  1. Nursery Rhymes: Jingles
  2. Nursery Rhymes: Love and Matrimony
  3. Nursery Rhymes: Natural History, Part 1
  4. Nursery Rhymes: Natural History, Part 2
  5. Nursery Rhymes: Accumulative Stories
  6. Nursery Rhymes: Relics