There Was an Old Man...: A Gallery of Nonsense Rhymes

From Publishers Weekly
Technically unassailable and intermittently riotous, Lemieux's (What's That Noise?) watercolors only occasionally enhance the verses of the well-loved 19th-century wordsmith. Illustrating about 50 of Lear's limericks, the pictures sit primly on the page, symmetrically contained in rectangular borders or floated delicately amid negative space, and their mannerisms seem an effort to mime the droll artifices of the verse form. Her personal visions sometimes mesh with the loopiness of Lear's rhymes: for "There was an Old Lady of Chertsey,/ Who made a remarkable curtsey... " she draws a ballerina's tutu and legs as a screw about to spin into the ground. Other matches don't click, as when a blase-looking fellow personifies 'That ecstatic Old Person of Tring." Given the sameness of the art and the formulaic quality of nonsense limericks, the volume risks repetitiousness unless taken in small doses. All ages. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 3 Up-This small-sized collection of 53 of Lear's nonsense limericks invites children to share the poet's look at the foibles of some of the world's silliest people. Lemieux has heightened the humor with her bright, detailed watercolors that echo the sharp noses and strange expressions of Lear's original drawings. Readers will laugh at the "person of Tring," whose embellishing nose ring actually encircles his nose; at the tiny "person of Bromley," whose Borrower-like dwelling is in the floorboards; and at the old man with a distinctively froggy face who lives in a marsh. Each rhyme is illustrated with either a full-or a double-page painting. Libraries that own the more comprehensive Of Pelicans and Pussycats (Dial, 1990) may find this title to be an additional purchase; on the other hand, those who wish to encourage youngsters' interest in Lear and in humorous verse will want to own this volume as well.Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, LaramieCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 3-5, younger for reading aloud. If limericks are an acquired taste, Lemieux gives readers a most appetizing buffet to sample. Fifty-three of Lear's limericks appear, each on a single page or a double-page spread, accompanied by illustrations only slightly more surreal than the verse. Take the rhyme "There is a Young Lady, whose nose, / Continually prospers and grows; / When it grew out of sight, she exclaimed in a fright, / `Oh! Farewell to the end of my nose!'" It's illustrated by a drawing of a distressed maiden whose nose is growing around the corners of a seemingly endless maze. Birds appear at intervals within the maze, observing the phenomenon. A good match for the limericks' comical mixture of innocence and sophistication, the line-and-watercolor illustrations capture Lear's sense of the absurd. Carolyn Phelan

From Kirkus Reviews
The witty watercolors of Lemieux (The Pied Piper of Hamelin, 1993, etc.) enrich this collection of Lear limericks originally published in 1846 in The Book of Nonsense. The ``young bird in this bush'' who is ``not small'' is here so big he actually wears the bush as a belt. The ``exceedingly wide hat'' of the Old Man of Dee- side, under which the old man invites people to take refuge, becomes, in the illustration, a tent that shelters a dancing couple from the rain. Lemieux has perhaps chosen too many ditties where the fourth line is a disappointing repeat of the first, and while the illustrations complement, they rarely surprise. But young children, who love to hear repeated familiar strains, will undoubtedly be charmed. (Precocious kids--or, for that matter, regressive parents--needn't bother looking for Nantucket in these rhymes; it never appears.) A visit with an a slightly doddering old friend. (Poetry/Picture book. All ages) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Card catalog description
An illustrated collection of limericks by the well-known nineteenth-century English writer.


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ger for reading aloud. If limericks are an acquired taste, Lemieux gives readers a most appetizing buffet to sample. Fifty-three of Lear's limericks appear, each on a single page or a double-page spread, accompanied by illustrations only slightly more surreal than the verse. Take the rhyme "There is a Young Lady, whose nose, / Continually prospers and grows; / When it grew out of sight, she exclaimed in a fright, / `Oh! Farewell to the end of my nose!'" It's illustrated by a drawing of a distressed maiden whose nose is growing around the corners of a seemingly endless maze. Birds appear at intervals within the maze, observing the phenomenon. A good match for the limericks' comical mixture of innocence and sophistication, the line-and-watercolor illustrations capture Lear's sense of the absurd.


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