Written with style and heart by Wolverton Hill and illustrated with whimsical art by Laura Carlin, this love letter to Edward Lear brings him wonderfully to life for young readers.
Edward Lear popularized the limerick as we know it and invented the modern literary genre of nonsense, made famous by Lewis Carroll. But did you know that as a teenager, he was a natural history artist on par with John J. Audubon?
He has a memorial in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, placing him among the UK’s most important authors. Yet even still, Lear seems underappreciated. This picture-book biography will change all of that.
Not only does it tell of what Lear did, it also shows who he was by conflating the naturalistic and nonsense, as Lear himself did, and by daring to be both fanciful and playful, for the facts of a life alone can never give you the full picture of a person.
Lear liked children and children liked Lear, for they shared an innate sense of play and silliness, as well as a tolerance for the absurd and unusual. As Lear understood so well, being silly isn't just about having fun, as a sense of play is foundational to a resilient life. And of course, nonsense as practiced by Lear was a sharp weapon of satire against rigid Victorian conformity.
Whether in his keenly observed work as a natural history painter or in his nonsense verse, Lear animated the world through a deep sense of empathy, and it is in this way that author Hill and illustrator Carlin deliver Lear to us. Rich backmatter includes some Lear poems and paintings, a chronology, and notes from the author and illustrator.
Praise
A Children’s Book Council Hot Off the Press selection, August 2025!
"An absolute joy of a picture book—celebrating nonsense, play, art, storytelling and the life of the writer and artist Edward Lear... Wolverton Hill tells the story of Lear’s life with a playfulness that echoes his subject’s own writings. Likewise, the award-winning Laura Carlin’s visual storytelling—a seamless mix of full illustrations and sketchy doodles, her art and Lear’s—is not only exquisite but as exuberantly clever and goofy as that of the nonsense king himself."
—The New York Times, Jon Scieszka, the first U.S. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature
"The playful loquaciousness of the writing, the melding of fact and fiction (while also making it very clear which parts are fantasy) alongside Carlin’s gorgeous art… This book is unlike anything that’s come before."
—A Fuse #8 Production (A School Library Journal blog), Betsy Bird
“A fitting portrait of the creator of nonsensical foolishness… Hill’s writing complements Carlin’s ethereal illustrations, creating a fanciful world full of wonder and nonsensical imagery… A lovingly unique tribute to a master of whimsicality.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’ has delighted generations of children, and this thoroughgoing picture book biography carefully documents the life of its author, Edward Lear… In this extended, dreamlike examination of a creator who found ways to express his love of the unconventional, Carlin weaves Lear-like scribbles (and some of the artist’s own work) in and around smudged, often ghostly figures, portrayed with various skin tones.”
—Publishers Weekly
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! “Surreal and beautiful illustrations help tell the story of Edward Lear. Literature and bird lovers alike will appreciate reading about his busy life.”
—New York Public Library, Rebecca Roman, Librarian
"Hill makes a good case that Lear's most enduring gift was an ability to make people laugh... Thumbnails of his paintings and drawings are gathered at the end and also slipped into some of Carlin’s free-spirited scenes of the young artist regaling a 'jumble-bumble' of children with limericks and other flights of fancy while diaphanous owls, scroobious pips, toeless pobbles, and more swirl around and overhead."
—Booklist
"Edward Lear is probably most famous for his poem 'The Owl and the Pussy-cat,' but Wolverton Hill and Laura Carlin give us a more expansive portrait of the artist in this clever and energetic picture book biography... Hill’s text sometimes forays into Lear-like nonsense—when it describes an unusually chatty macaw at the zoo, for example—and Carlin’s art is a fanciful homage to Lear’s own."
—Literary Hub, Caroline Carlson
"Hill's deep knowledge of and love for Lear transforms what could have been a static portrait into something vibrant and alive. Rather than presenting a distant historical figure, Hill invites us to walk alongside a man whose search for belonging feel startlingly contemporary... Carlin wields color like an emotional vocabulary—browns, blacks, and grays speak to melancholy and exclusion, while vibrant yellows, oranges, reds, and blues pulse with creative energy and connection."
—Warm as Toast, Sophie Hoffer
