My 4 year old granddaughter was excited about showing us the nursery rhyme book that she had been compiling at school.As she showed us several of the rhymes on Skype, I recited some of them for her.
Little Miss Muffet sat on the tuffet eating her curds and whey..
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star..
When I saw Three Blind Mice, I was going to sing,
"Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?"
Before I finished the first few words, Tif stopped me with, "Uhhhh...Mom? No, that's not what's written here. The words have been ummmm... altered." Then she read them to me.
"Three nice mice,
Three nice mice
See how nice they are
See how nice they are
They’re always polite
When they nibble their cheese
They cover their noses
Whenever they sneeze
Ah, Ah, Ah, Chooo!
Three nice mice"
I must say, this new teacher adapted version is a lot more PG and less bloodthirsty. When you think about some of our English/American fairy tales and nursery rhymes, they're pretty darn violent. I can see why KC's pre-school teacher wanted to edit the original even though the words sounded a little strange to me. I guess I didn't pay much attention to the words when I was a child.
