Rarest Kind of Best

GREENAWAY MEDAL WINNER – 1969

Edward Lear, author

Helen Oxenbury, illustrator

Essex: Springbourne Press, 1969, 1985

30 pp

Ages: 2 +

Interests: poetry, nonsense, animals

The Quangle Wangle Quee sits atop his tree with plenty of jam and bread but no company. Soon all manner of strange creatures come to live in his enormous hat and they have a fine time together. An ode to hospitality and the pleasures of company.

Nobody wrote nonsense like Edward Lear – the Fimble Fowl with a corkscrew leg, the Pobble who has no toes, the small Olympian bear, and the Dong with the Luminous Nose – and his bizarre creatures are lovingly illustrated here by Helen Oxenbury. A very simple and gentle tale of an outsider whose face cannot be seen because of his hat, and the new friends who arrive unexpectedly and dance through the night.