Tag Archives: Edward Lear

Revolutionary Mother Goose

Mother goose rhymes, nonsense verse, and playful fantasy are essential to our mental health.

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Swimming with the Water Babies

Swimming with my granddaughters put me in mind of Charles Kingsley’s “Water Babies.” Kingsley helped us enter into the rich imaginative lives of children.

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Lear’s Nonsense Perfect for Children

My grandson’s tiny body and large head brought to mind Edward Lear’s Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.

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Read Your Kids Nonsense Poems

I taught Alice in Wonderland a couple of weeks ago and found myself thrown back to wonderful childhood memories of my father reading me Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poetry.  Authority figures in the book are always ordering Alice to recite instructional verse, like Issac Watts’ “Against Idleness and Mischief” or Robert Southey’s “The Old Man’s Comforts […]

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Prancing Poetry and a Child’s Imagination

Last week I gave a list of my favorite children’s books when I was young.  My father, who is a poet along with being a French professor, read us poetry as well as fiction (each night, one story or chapter and one poem for each of my three brothers and me), so I thought I’d […]

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