Yo’ Mama, Mary Mack, and Boudreaux and Thibodeaux: Louisiana Children’s Folklore and Play, by Jeanne Pitre Soileau, is a study of children’s self-generated games in southern Louisiana from the 1970s to the 2010s. Those forty-plus years encompass the integration of public education in that region, the anti-Vietnam war movement, hippies, video games, MTV, Michael Jackson, boom boxes and break dancing, martial arts heroics, personal computers, and cell phones—all forces influencing children’s folklore, both in terms of medium and content.

Guided by a passionate interest in how children play, imitate and create, and otherwise express themselves, Soileau is a keen observer. While honoring a regional cultural identity, she supports her assertions with quotes from the work of many highly reputed folklorists and sociologists. She demonstrates great familiarity with the work of the Opies, Bessie Jones, Roger Abrahams, Simon Bronner, Elizabeth Tucker, Alan Dundes, Kyra Gaunt, and others. The bibliography reveals an extensive acquaintance with the scholarship in children’s folklore.

Her fieldwork technique is well structured and delineated. The prompts she employs to engage her informants appear to be very effective. Using an approach that is more anecdotal than data-driven, she scrutinizes both the text and the context, helping the reader process her conclusions. This compilation with analysis is a valuable contribution to childlore collection.

After identifying her methodology, Soileau ventures into the realm of verbal games, dividing the boys and the girls into separate chapters, yet she admits that the gender division is by no means a rigid line. While discussing the games of boys, she focuses on their fascination with repartee. Whether looking at “playing the dozens”—a ritual of verbal insults—or examining mannerisms in telling jokes and storytelling, she identifies the boys’ tendency to enjoy one-upmanship. Soileau shows appreciation for the dry wit (24): “You so stupid you ran around the building and got lost.”

When it comes to the girls’ predilections, the study focuses on handclapping games and cheers and the interactions of the informants. A healthy amount of attention is given to the longevity of the ring games “Little Sally Walker” and “When I Was a Baby.” Remarking on the regularity of the lyrics of “Miss Mary Mack,” she offers no explanation. Credit for that goes to Ella Jenkins, who helped revive and popularize this game in the early 1970s. The Alan Lomax Collection, housed at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, contains multiple variants recorded in the South in the 1930s and 1940s.

Another chapter considers new media and technology. Much of what was once called “free time” is now usurped by various technological innovations. Many patterns of behavior are shifting, at least on the surface. Parents used to engage restless infants in patty cake or finger play. An intermediary device such as a cell phone now captivates those budding minds. Children today grow up in a world of cell phones and the internet. They have a different orientation to basic information from that used by those of us born before 1981. Educators cite 1981, the year Steve Jobs famously offered “an Apple computer for every classroom,” as launching the computer age.

So far, the repertoire of games children play still includes traditional games, while new activities are developing as well. Virtual reality storytelling, where the participant has some control of the story line, has created new and interesting possibilities. Flash mobs have risen in popularity. Large groups of people practice dance routines influenced by MTV and Bollywood. Events appear to be spontaneous, but they are coordinated through the use of phones.

While discussing the interplay of commercialism and folklore traditions, Soileau acknowledges the interrelation of commercial music and handclapping chants, citing playground versions of “Rockin’ Robin.” She draws attention to MTV, break dancing and martial arts, and Michael Jackson, and marks the 1980s as a pivotal period for the influence of mass media. Further developments include flash mob happenings. The viral dissemination of the “Cup Song,” due to Anna Kendrick’s version in the 2012 movie Pitch Perfect, is a similar phenomenon.

Will self-generated children’s games survive? As Bess Hawes put it so well in the Let’s Get the Rhythm documentary (2014), “There are all kinds of features in these traditional materials that make them survival material. And I think they probably will survive, but that’s just my guess. I think it’s an educated guess.” Jeanne Soileau's work confirms the value of children’s folklore and its on-going study through opening the window onto a remarkable period in a unique region.

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[Review length: 746 words • Review posted on January 18, 2018]