Mary and Her Little Lamb: The True Story of the Famous Nursery Rhyme.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)

* Mary and Her Little Lamb: The True Story of the Famous Nursery Rhyme

Will Moses. Philomel, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-399,25154-2

Moses (Raspberries!) proves that going behind the music needn't uncover sex, drugs, or nervous breakdowns. He introduces readers to the real Mary of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," a 19th-century Massachusetts farm girl named Mary Elizabeth Sawyer who nurses a newborn lamb back to health and wins its woolly, unwavering loyalty. The lamb did indeed follow Mary into school--"bold and proud, just as if she had always belonged there"--on the same day that a visitor named John Roulstone was in attendance. …