And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon By Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel

..."They didn't come back!"
"What do you mean they didn't come back? Dish and Spoon always come back."
"Not this time... They're gone for good!"

Cat, Dog and the jumping Cow go looking for Dish and Spoon, the nursery rhyme can't continue its daily routine without them! While looking for the runaways, Cat, Dog and Cow find various nursery rhyme characters that try to help a bit, including the big bad Wolf that has a broken piece of china.What happened to Dish and Spoon!? After they get it all sorted out, all the characters go back to their own land and the rhyme begins once more... except that this time Dish and Spoon stay home.

I like the humor and word play of this book, the adventures will attract young children and the many subtle references to nursery rhymes and some fairy tales will draw clever older readers. This book reminds me of David Wiesner's The Three Pigs, with the references to their own stories using various points of view. I'd like to recommend this book to children who are familiar with nursery rhymes, it is a great book for early elementary students to revisit their "old" friends from the nursery rhymes in a clever way.