In two poems the grand King and Queen of the Pelicans live a joyous life on the banks of the Nile and a strange creature's vast hat attracts a wide variety of nesters.

With lavish illustrations, Caldecott Honoree Marcellino brings a decidedly droll vision to three of Lear's classic tales--The New Vestments, The Pelican Chorus, and The Owl and the Pussycat--in this picture book collection. Full color. 11 x 9 1/2.

All too often Nonsense is relegated to the nursery. Marnie Parsons argues that, rather than being mere child's play, nonsense is a major force in poetic language. In Touch Monkeys she presents us with an original approach to a much-maligned linguistic pursuit. Parsons distinguishes between nonsense language and Nonsense, the genre. Her major chapters work towards a vision of nonsense language as palimpsestic - as involving the overlaying of several ways of making meaning on a verbal sense system, and the consequent disruption of that system. This reading of nonsense is itself an intersection, bringing together historical and contemporary criticism of literary Nonsense and a wide range of poetic and literary theories. Using Carroll and Lear as examples of Nonsense, Parsons provides a survey of existing Nonsense criticism in English, and then extends and elaborates nonsense in theoretical directions set by Gilles Deleuze and Julia Kristeva, among others, and by the poetics of such writers as Charles Olson, Charles Bernstein, Ron Silliman, Steve McCaffery, Louis Zukofsky, and Daphne Marlatt. Following each chapter is a close reading of work by writers as varied as Rudyard Kipling, Colleen Thibaudeau, Adrienne Rich, and Lyn Hejinian. These readings provide practical applications of nonsense theory and establish the interdependence of theory and practice. Nonsense inhabits and challenges traditional forms simultaneously; in Touch Monkeys Parsons enters into the spirit of the genre.

The Man in the Moon has dropped down to earth for a visit. Over the hedge, a rabbit in trousers is having a pipe with his evening paper. Elsewhere, Alice is passing through a looking glass, Dorothy riding a tornado to Oz, and Jack climbing a beanstalk to heaven. To enter the world of children's literature is to journey to a realm where the miraculous and the mundane exist side by side, a world that is at once recognizable and real--and enchanted. Many books have probed the myths and meanings of children's stories, but Goldthwaite's Natural History is the first exclusively to survey the magic that lies at the heart of the literature. From the dish that ran away with the spoon to the antics of Brer Rabbit and Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat, Goldthwaite celebrates the craft, the invention, and the inspired silliness that fix these tales in our minds from childhood and leave us in a state of wondering to know how these things can be. Covering the three centuries from the fairy tales of Charles Perrault to Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, he gathers together all the major imaginative works of America, Britain, and Europe to show how the nursery rhyme, the fairy tale, and the beast fable have evolved into modern nonsense verse and fantasy. Throughout, he sheds important new light on such stock characters as the fool and the fairy godmother and on the sources of authors as diverse as Carlo Collodi, Lewis Carroll, and Beatrix Potter. His bold claims will inspire some readers and outrage others. He hails Pinocchio, for example, as the greatest of all children's books, but he views C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia as a parable that is not only murderously misogynistic, but deeply blasphemous as well. Fresh, incisive, and utterly original, this rich literary history will be required reading for anyone who cares about children's books and their enduring influence on how we come to see the world.

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear! Who has written such volumes of stuff. Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few think him pleasant enough. So wrote Edward Lear upon the first publication of these Nonsense Songs in 1871, and few poets indeed have captured the imagination of children as he has. His playful use of language, his celebration of the absurd, his love of pure nonsense have secured his place on the shelves of childhood libraries for generations. This new edition of his Nonsense Songs has all the favorites--the romantic "Owl and the Pussy-Cat" and the silly "Jumblics"--as well as many other rhymes that may be new to young readers--"The Pelican Chorus" and the hilarious "New Vestments." Newly commissioned illustrations by Jonathan Allen and an introduction by Naomi Lewis make this the edition of choice for a new generation of readers. His Waistcoat and Trousers were made of Pork Chops;-- His Buttons were Jujubes, and Chocolate Drops;-- Hi Coat was all Pancakes with Jam for a Border, And a girdle of Biscuits to keep it in order.