Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes, arranged and illustrated with needlework by Salley Mavor, Houghton Mifflin, $21.99, ages 4-8, 72 pages. With needle and thread, snippets of felt, and objects from the craft drawer, Mavor sews to life the enchanting world of nursery rhymes. Embroidered scenes illustrate 65 poems, from the familiar, "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe," to the lesser known "Rain on the Green Grass." Designed like intricate folktale art, every scene leads the eye around the page to find little treasures, a bean stalk twirling up from the grass around a roof awning or a wheel barrow that rolls on a button and is brimming with tiny felt pies. In many scenes, felt dolls with wooden bead heads are laid down and placed just-so, making pages look like something a child would arrange in casual play. (Readers may even be tempted to try to lift one off the page.) At times the scenes are almost painterly, as in a poem about a wise old owl who lived in an oak. An owl sits perched on a sprawling oak, its plumage sewn in Vs of tans, purples and blues. On every branch hangs a tiny acorn or two, as leaves in greens and blue appear to flutter in a breeze.
