Mixed Beasts

Linda Ludke is a children’s librarian at the London Public Library.

Using Kenyon Cox’s original 1904 verse as inspiration, Wallace Edwards
has created an awe-inspiring compendium of fantastic creatures. Our
field guide on this surreal journey is Professor Julius Duckworth
O’Hare Esq., a bespectacled white rabbit. We are introduced to the
industrious bucktoothed “Bumblebeaver,” who makes “mud-houses with
his tail” and gathers “honey with his nose.” An “Octopussycat”
is a tabby with eight arms who wields a teacup, a violin, and an opened
birdcage. The irresistible “Creampuffin” sits neatly arranged on a
china plate and is “round and fat and foolish, / But he’s very
good—to eat.”

Each of Cox’s rhymes is framed by a decorative border and accompanied
by a pen-and-ink sketch. The facing page provides a colour portrait of
the intriguing hybrid animal in exotic settings. The “Parrotter”
enjoys a day by the sea, while the “Camelephant” rests his head
under a stack of pillows in the middle of the jungle.

An appendix lists 32 more wondrous beasts that appear in the background
illustrations, such as “Fowl Ball” (a rooster whose abdomen is a
baseball), “Fruit Bat” (a banana with wings), and “Fiddler Crab”
(a violin with pinchers). Children will delight in the visual puns and
enjoy conjuring up some surprising combinations of their own. Highly
recommended.