Mother Goose never gets old or goes stale. Modern illustrators and writers make sure of that.

Three recent releases provide ample proof. One features exquisite illustrations for the traditional verses, and two take text and art into new territory.

“The Neat Line: Scribbling Through Mother Goose” (Katherine Tegen Books, $15.99) rewrites the storylines of very familiar tales to give them creatively happy endings. A very helpful anthropomorphic line slides from page to page, righting problems in one rhyme after another.

Written by Pamela Duncan Edwards and illustrated by Diana Cain Bluthenthal, the book will bring smiles of pleasure to young children. When Jack and Jill fall down the hill, the line loops itself into a cobblestone path so they no longer have to slip down the slope. Readers will cheer their rescue.

The pictures are simple but perky, the storyline laughable and invigorating.

Even zanier is “You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very Short Mother Goose Tales to Read Aloud” (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $16.99). Designed to be read by two people or two groups, these creative dialogues by Mary Ann Hoberman are illustrated with relentless ridiculousness by Michael Emberley.

In “Little Jack Horner and Little Tommy Tucker,” Tommy is a raccoon in a battered fedora who proffers a plum to Jack, a gorilla who sings for his supper with an electric guitar as accompaniment.

Jack also wears a pair of shades and work boots, but is really quite staid. When he sees Jack’s plum on his thumb, he remarks “… you are the messiest/Fellow I’ve seen,” to which Tommy replies, “I’ll lick off my thumb/And I’ll get it all clean.”

All the episodes are equally good-natured but off the wall. Children or children and adults together can join in the inspired silliness by reading the alternating speeches between characters.

For sheer visual pleasure, not many nursery rhyme books can top “Mary Engelbreit’s Mother Goose: One Hundred Best-Loved Verses” (HarperCollins, $19.99). Featuring a vast selection of verses, many of them unfamiliar even to adults, Engelbreit’s volume is an instant classic.

The art is often luminous and is filled with unexpected delectable details like a hen decked out in a floral fringed scarf, her chicks outfitted with party hats and other assorted regalia.

It will take a vast number of readings to catch all the details of text and design. This is a volume to return to again and again for its perpetual good humor and its endless palette of colors.

To rephrase an old maxim: once bitten, always smitten. The initial love affair with this book will turn into a lifelong romance.