Mrs. Goose Goes to Washington: Nursery Rhymes for the Political Barnyard

Do politics make you cringe, or do politics make you smile? 
Either way, Mrs. Goose will entertain you for a while. 
Conservatives, liberals, and all in between 
Will from these pages humor glean.  

Mother Goose taught us long ago that little girls are made of “sugar and spice and everything nice” and little boys are nothing but “snips and snails and puppy dog tails.” But what happens when those children grow up? And turn 18 and start voting? What are little Republicans and Democrats made of?  

In Mrs. Goose Goes to Washington, Hart Seely explains that the difference between the two parties is (among other things) “Book of Genesis creation / Social Security privatization / SUVs / Wine and cheese” versus “Union bosses / Election losses / Experimental solar cars and / Self-centered movie stars.” 

Seely—whose previous book was Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld—borrows the structure of popular nursery rhymes to frame his own verses about everything from the 2008 presidential candidates to Google and the media. The book offers something for political aficionados (“Rub-a-dub-dub / Three men in a tub. / The Cheney, the Rummy, the Commander-in-Dummy”) as well as the celebrity-obsessed (“Mel Gibson drank a few / and swerved his car through Malibu”). Find out if you qualify for Medicare: “Do your teeth hang low? / Do you wobble to and fro? / Is your bladder in a knot? / Are you leaky down below?” Or if you’re technologically savvy: “Blah blah Blackberry, / have you any mail?” 

Mrs. Goose is a small book that’s perfect as birthday gift or stocking stuffer for a hard-to-shop-for person. Anyone with an interest in skewering politics, current events, or pop culture will be amused by Seely’s silly and spirited sense of humor.