Too much for curmudgeonly me, but I imagine many families would enjoy this as a read-aloud. I did appreciate the biography. I did not know Lear made a living by painting.

Edward Lear's zany poems and limericks came highly recommended to me. Maybe it's just not my thing? I wasn't a huge fan of this book of poems. They are weird and filled with fun rhymes and crazy, made-up words (usually my thing), but there is so much that just doesn't make any sense at all. Perhaps it's the language barrier--these do contain a lot of English (as in the UK) words and colloquialisms.
The good parts are the short intro/explanation before (most) of the poems. This really helped give me some context and kind of make sense of the proceeding poem. Oddly enough, my children were not keen on these and often cut me off when I read the short paragraph asking me to just read the poem. hmmf
The illustrations are interesting--very colorful, detailed and go well (for the most part) with the poems.
I am not sure how I would use this in a classroom. This might not be something I can incorporate into a lesson--there is just so much other great poetry out there!

A fun collection of poems and illustrations written by Edward Lear and illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith. Each poem has a synopsis describing the main idea or explaining a unknown word. I think this book would be great for independent reading because it does have the synopsis and definitions. It could also be easily used to teach poem concepts such as rhyming.

This is a great overview of Edward Lear’s fun poetry. Hailey and I both enjoyed it. Lear is a great example of how poems do not have to be self-serious and epic - they can be fun to read and enjoyable for the reader. My favorite from this collection is Mr. and Mrs. Spikky Sparrow.

I read this with the help of my six year old, assisted with the occasional silly voice. The illustrations were fun, and the poems were entertaining.

A real 'whale' of a tale.

This book offers a collection of twenty poems by Edward Lear. Of course, it includes the classic verse, 'The Owl and the Pussycat,' along with many of his seemingly nonsensical poems.

I really enjoyed reading the introduction, which includes several pages of biographical information and influences on his writing.

Overall, it's a fun, fast read and I really enjoyed the poems and the quirky illustrations.

interesting quote:

"The characters in his poems - botht the human ones and the made-up animals - are also passionate seekers of justice and freedom. No matter how ridiculous they sound, they almost always refuse to do what others expect of them. No matter how small and weak, they are brave and adventurous, and many of them find joy in a country far away from the one in which they began." (p. 4)

Summary: collection of funny poems by 19th century England's poet Edward Lear, including "The Owl and the Pussy-cat"
Book Level: Lexile 230 L, ATOS 2.5
Mentor text trait: poems are written in both prose and rhyme and express short fantasy stories. Word choice is funny and made up.
Recommendation: writing lesson on poetry, using unique words, rhymes that don't necessarily make sense but add character.

The poetry gets five stars, but the introduction only two. More straightwashing (a problem with this entire series.) No, Edward Lear didn't ask only one woman his entire life to marry him (and one who was 46 years younger than he and who said no, twice) because he was "so shy." He was, as my mother-in-law says, "gay as the day is long." Telling kids that some people in the world are gay isn't going to warp them, and it's not developmentally inappropriate. It would probably save lives.

Edward Lear is a very creative writer in his children's poetry. This book was, full of the craziest made up words that you can think of. It is great for keeping children's attention though because they will be amused by the words they hear and read in this book. Also, the illustrations in this book are very cartoonish and eye catching. I would suggest this book as something to read to your children. Children would enjoy being able to look at the creative pictures while being read the ridiculous rhymes. The poems in this book are great for introducing children to poetry and can help the younger children learn how to rhyme and shows them which words rhyme with what. The book seems as though it is targeted at a bit of an older age group, children eight to ten, but would be a good book for parents to read to their children as well.

A real “whale” of a tale.

Five stars for this great series. Love the format, illustrations, and smattering of famous poems.

Three stars for the poems. After reading Lear and Jack Prelutsky, I've realized that I'm just not a fan of nonsense poems. I'm reading Lewis Carroll poems right now and I actually quite enjoy those. They are silly but also clever. They have slightly sarcastic, biting humor that just tickles me. Prelutsky and Lear write ridiculous nonsense that doesn't make sense, but is supposed to be fun and humorous. I can see why some people would like it, but I really do not.

My favorite poem in the book is the The Akond of Swat.