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Nursery Rhyme Project: Heavy words lightly thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme?
Sometime in the long ago and far away, well OK the Winter of 2002, F&M Publications thought there that it might be interesting to publish a book about the history of nursery rhymes accompanied with adult illustrations that best illuminated the original meanings of many childhood rhymes. A lot of research was done, a team of illustrators and artists with widely differing styles and different backgrounds were brought together with an open brief to illustrate their allotted nursery rhyme as they saw fit. The first version of heavy words lightly thrown featuring 22 rhymes and three general chapters came out in November 2003 and distributed via independent bookshops in London, Brighton, Suffolk and North Wales.
The simple premise
behind the book was to tell the history and origins of many favourite nursery rhymes
and make people regard them in a different light by bringing in 21st century
social references and contexts. Many were initially written for an adult audience
so in a sense heavy words is just returning the rhymes to their rightful
place.
In
March 2004 an avalanche of publicity was triggered by a mention in Reuters
that was picked up most rapidly by the Daily Telegraph and Radio Five. Other
media reviews
followed and the first print sold out by mid March and the bulk of the
reprint by the time a new expanded edition published by Granta Books came
out in the late summer. The Granta hardback edition has now sold out as is a third hardback incarnation (complete with glossary but minus original pictures) from Gotham
Books in the United States who also brought out a paperback edition of
Heavy words lightly thrown in the summer of 2006.These hardback versions are sold out but lurking in a warehouse in the
North were 500 copies of a special reprint of the first version complete with the
original illustrations which we can now release in March 2008. |
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