The Owl and the Pussycat and Other Nonsense Poems - Hardcover

This book contains "The Owl and the Pussycat," "The Jumblies," and "The Pobble Who Has No Toes." Each poem is set in large type and framed with a slice of ocean on the bottom, yellow-columned sides and top, with whimsical round pictures embedded in the corners and beneath the poem. The large illustrations on the pages facing the text and three double-page spreads are created in an exaggerated style with bright flat colors and are reminiscent of early cartoons such as the "Felix the Cat" series; the Jumblies and the Pobble have the rounded, babylike cuteness of Steven Cosgrove's characters. The small pictures used to frame the poems do not change from page to page, and there is a static quality to the larger pictures that doesn't do justice to the whimsy of the verse. Other illustrated editions of The Owl and the Pussycat, including Lorinda Bryan Cauley's (Putnam, 1986) and Janet Stevens' (Holiday, 1983), do this better. Ted Rand's The Jumblies (Putnam, 1989) interprets this poem very differently. Libraries that own these or The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear can pass this one up. --Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie
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