Hilary Knight's The Owl and the Pussy-Cat reissue - Hardcover

Lear, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689839278 ISBN 13: 9780689839276

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2001

Synopsis

Captivated by Edward Lear's poem, a boy and girl turn into the owl and the pussycat and set sail in a pea green boat for The Land Where the Bong Tree Grows. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

Like Edward Lear, Hilary Knight is both an artist and an animal lover, and he fills each of the dazzling watercolors in this tribute to Lear with references to the great Victorian nonsense poet's life and works. With more than sixty books to his credit, Mr. Knight is probably best known for his illustrations in the phenomenally successful Eloise books and Where's Wallace?, which he wrote himself. He lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this gloriously madcap setting of Lear's classic, the famous nonsense poem of a nautical romance receives star treatment. Knight (Eloise) conceives of Lear's verses as a series of theatrical tableaux, with elaborate sets and exaggerated expressions big enough to be seen from the last row. He casts an eccentric old fellow who looks suspiciously like Lear (who appears as a bust on the title page) as Professor Comfort. The gentleman invites two schoolchildren (the boy bears an odd resemblance to an owl, the girl to a cat) in for tea and a little poetry. As he reads, the children morph magically into the animals in the poem, the walls of the cottage fall away and the pea-green window seat becomes the famous boat, adrift on a briny sea. The Owl and Pussy-cat court, marry and dance in the dazzling landscapes of the Land of Bong before turning back into children and running home for dinner. The illustrations reveal more delights with every inspection: hints of the animals to come can be detected in the children's clothing, earnest flying fish in the Land of Bong call the children's names as their mothers in the real world hunt for them, a replica of the professor's cottage constructed entirely of edibles appears in the Land of Bong. In Knight's hands, Lear's poem assumes a complete and memorable visual life of its own it is a ticket to the best sort of entertainment. All ages.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0689839278
• ISBN 13: 9780689839276
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Knight Hilary