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October 31, 2008
“Isabel Didn’t Scream or Scurry:” Poetry Friday
Isabel, Isabel didn’t worry,
Isabel didn’t scream or scurry.
She showed no rage and showed no rancor,
But she turned the witch into milk and drank her.
-from “The Adventures of Isabel” by Ogden Nash (read the rest of the poem here)
A few weeks ago, Jason and I did a Spooky Storytime for kids in grades 2-5 at WPL. As part of the program, Jason read “Little Orphant Annie” (one of my all-time favorite cautionary tales) and, in response, I read “The Adventures of Isabel” by Ogden Nash.
“The Adventures of Isabel” appeared in Nash’s The Bad Parents’ Garden of Verse in 1936, and the poem hasn’t aged even a little. In rhyming couplets, it tells the story of Isabel, a self-actualized soul who never breaks the bounds of decorum while dispatching (in order) a bear, a witch, a giant, a doctor, and a nightmare. Some of the fun lies in the contrast between the formal-sounding name “Isabel” and the young girl’s acts of violence (in one case, “she cut the giant’s head off”). The rest of the fun lies in words I love to read aloud: “ravenous,” “cavernous,” “rancor,” “zwieback,” “concocter.” I had to look up “zwieback” in the dictionary—BONUS POINTS for Mr. Nash.
“The Adventures of Isabel” is a frequently anthologized poem, but you’ll find it in one of my favorite books, Scared Silly!: A Book for the Brave, edited and illustrated by Marc Brown, a collection of stories, poems, and jokes that features monsters and creatures galore but turns out to be more empowering than scary. This is good because we don’t really want to frighten the children. Much.
Check out today’s Poetry Friday roundup over at Poetry for Children. Bound to be fun today, what with the holiday and all. And, of course, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Books mentioned:
Brown, Marc, editor. Scared Silly!: A Book for the Brave. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994. (Out of Print)
Nash, Ogden, illustrated by Reginald Birch. The Bad Parents’ Garden of Verse. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1936. (Out of Print)
Riley, James Whitcomb, illustrated by Joel Schick. The Gobble-uns’ll Git You ef You Don’t Watch Out! Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1975. (Out of Print)
Posted by adrienne at October 31, 2008 08:50 AM
Comments
What a cool poem (new to me). Love that Isabel!
Posted by: jama at October 31, 2008 11:07 AM
Such a great piece of absurdity. Really, how cool is turning someone evil into something as wholesome as MILK? No wasted effort or gratuitous violence for Isabel!
Posted by: Sara at October 31, 2008 11:22 AM
Jama, Glad you liked it!
Sara, It's true. At another point, she even fixes up her hair before taking care of the bear. Good multitasker.
Posted by: adrienne at October 31, 2008 03:10 PM
I'm a big fan of Nash and Isabel too-- particularly the poem picture book illustrated by James Marshall. Love it! Thanks for participating in Poetry Friday at PoetryforChildren this Halloween! Stop by any time...
Sylvia
Posted by: Sylvia at October 31, 2008 11:08 PM
Love Isabel. Will share with a friend whose granddaughter is Isabel. She should know this poem.
Posted by: jone at November 1, 2008 10:52 AM
Our library just got its copy of The Adventures of Isabel, and I busted up laughing when I got to that page-turn where Isabel turns the tables on the bear. I think this is a rarer-than-ought-to-be instance of a classic poem being turned into a stand-alone picture book with classic potential itself.
Posted by: Lisa Chellman at November 1, 2008 11:50 AM
Sylvia, Thanks for hosting Poetry Friday and stopping by!
Jone, "Isabel" is exactly my sort of name.
Lisa, I had no idea about that picture book version. I just put a copy on order for my library--thanks for alerting me to it!
Posted by: adrienne at November 1, 2008 12:30 PM