The Boy Who Became a Parrot : A Foolish Biography of Edward Lear, Who Invented Nonsense

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 th