Iye and Iyedo are friends from outer space. They come from a distant galaxy. Their mission is one of peace and teaching.

Iye and Iyedo are composed of eyes. Their heads are all eye. Their bodies are eye. Their limbs are made up of eyes. And they can see in many different ways. They have gone to NurseryRhyme Land to learn. They are sharing with us on Earth all that they have learned. They are sharing with us because they know that being able to see the same thing in many different ways is a sign of tolerance and wisdom - both essential to peace between all creatures in all the galaxies of all the Universe.

They are also sharing with parents and teachers, to prepare children for today's world of steadily advancing technology. Iye and Iyedo know that a high level of ability to identify and use signs, icons, and symbols is important in this new world we are creating.

They know that if they can communicate how they see the creatures of NurseryRhyme Land, they will be helping to prepare young minds to be super nimble at symbol hop-scotching. Because small children come to us prepared to learn language, they can also learn the language of symbols - which is the language of high technology.

Symbols are symbols because they suggest the essential quality of that for which they stand. Thoughts make connections from symbol to symbol. These connections between symbols set the stage for more elaborate thought, which has to be practiced before it becomes natural. Once this way of thinking has become integrated, it brings in more levels of thought. Repetition lays down and consolidates the pathways in the brain that form whole repertoires of subtle, complex thought capabilities.

The Mother Goose nursery rhymes, some of which have survived hundreds of years in virtually the same format, are already familiar to most young children. They function for the child's mind the way a push-up or sit-up functions for the body. They exercise and grow the mind so that it will be fit for the particular ways of the culture. This electronic book marries the rhymes of our childhood with highly original formatting and with new concepts needed to interact more intuitively, creatively, and freely in today's world.

All through a child's early education the link is being made between vision and language. The relationship between word and image is crucial in early education. In NurseryRhyme Land text is used to create image, and image is used to create text. Because of playful and original interchange of text and image, the thinking process is immediately engaged. It is not at first apparent what one is seeing. By continuing to think as the words and images combine and recombine in the mind, a new kind of thinking comes into being. This shift in thought is the purpose of the book and a reason for reading and rereading. There is more to be learned with each reading, as the mind is involved with the rhymes on many levels at the same time.

For example, let's look at "Hey, Diddle, Diddle, The Cat and the Fiddle." In thick black outline on the first page of this rhyme is a design which can be seen as, with a little imagination, a picture of a cat.

If you look very closely you will see that the cat's ears are the words "The" and "Cat." But the entire outline also forms the symbol "&", which stands for "and." So the design stands both for "cat" and "and." With the words "the Fiddle" we have a complete text title for the rhyme, "The Cat and the Fiddle." Together with the image on the facing page made by the text of the rhyme, we also have text/image visuals of the complete title.

Around the fiddle-shaped rhyme is a border of many cats. In the corner of the page we have Iye playing a fiddle and Iyedo following and, we suppose, listening attentively.

Paul Butkovich Ph.D., and Elisabeth Butkovich