Little Miss Muffet Counts to Ten

The traditional nursery rhyme is the starting point for this counting story wherein the spider invites Miss Muffet to stay. An ascending number of lemurs, magpies, foxes, cats, poodles, bears, gibbons and puffins bring all the paraphernalia for a fun-filled party under the trees and everything goes with a swing until ten crocodiles turn up with a very large box and even larger toothy grins. Is this the time for Miss Muffet to make a hasty exit?

Alternative versions of traditional rhymes seem to delight young listeners and readers (once they know the originals) and these subversive stanzas coupled with Chichester Clark’s illustrations in muted tones (first published over a decade ago) of the party preparations and the animals’ antics, have proved, and continue to be, deliciously diverting.