If you Should meet a Crocodile and other Poems (Poetry Treasury Book 2)

Recognizing that young children's natural love of rhythm and rhyme make them irresistible targets, poets and illustrators have blended their talents to create a new genre, the poetry picture book. There has always been poetic prose in picture books, but never before have so many skilled poets involved themselves in the picture-book genre as have Elizabeth Coatsworth, Aileen Fisher, Jack Prelutsky, Karla Kuskin, and Norma Faber. The phenomenal growth in the publication of single illustrated poems and col- lections of poetry in picture-book format follows the trend of the ubiquitous single illustrated song and Mother Goose rhyme.

The threat in poetry-picture books of over-illustration, stripping the power of children's personal visual imagination and detracting from the poem's innate images is very real, for often the illustrator's interpretation conflicts with the poem's mood. But generally, illustrators have resisted using the format as a mere vehicle or showcase for their artwork. On the whole, the subject matter and style in these works for younger children remain traditional. A collection of short, spicy verses, it reflects the spirit of American folk culture amid the changing beauty of the Vermont countryside.

The wit and musicality of Watson's poetry is effectively matched by the sly details and extended storytelling lines in Wendy Watson's cartoon-strip drawings. The pastiche quality of some of the rhymes is balanced by their charm, as in this verse with its echoes of "Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross":. Ride your red horse down Vinegar Lane, Gallop, oh gallop, oh gallop again! I've seventeen children but none I can spare. Particularly successful as a single illustrated poem is Randall Jarrell's A Bat Is Born , a long, lyrical, free verse poem excerpted from his short story , The Bat-Poet.

In murmuring cadences, darting rhythms, and sharp imagery, the poem describes the beauty of a newborn bat:. A bat is born Naked and blind and pale. His mother makes a pocket of her tail And catches him. He clings to her long fur By his thumbs and toes and teeth. And then the mother dances through the night Doubling and looping, soaring, somersaulting— Her baby hangs on underneath. John Schoenherr's sweeping, fluid sketches perfectly illustrate the bat's grace and character in expressive double-page spreads of the night sky.

The poetry-picture book form also has been employed as a vehicle for poetry and illustration suitable for older children by such poets as Natalia Belting, Richard Adams, Charles Causley, Robert Frost , and June Jordan. The presence of so many adult poets such as Jarrell and Causley in the province of children's poetry is strong evidence that it has come of age, that it is now sophisticated and noticeably complex, controversial, and experimental.

The distinction between adult and children's poetry is no longer as sharp and separate as it once was. More poetry written primarily for adults is used in children's anthologies, and many books of poetry, among them Ted Hughes's Season Songs, may be published for children and yet have an ardent adult audience.

Also, innumerable selections from the works of adult poets have been made for children since A growing faith in the ability of children to appreciate mature poetry has persuaded publishers to issue works of adult poetry edited for children to serve as enticing introductions to the complete works of those poets, among whom Robert Frost is the prime example. Frost's work has been acknowledged as appealing and provocative to children, not only in picture-book format as exemplified by Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening , but also in such collections as You Come Too: Favorite Poems for Young Readers His deep, bold lyrics and narratives of country life attract children with their simplicity, easy-flowing idiomatic language, and understated wisdom.

Langston Hughes is another who speaks with immediacy and freshness to children, and his poetry has been selected for them in the collection Don't You Turn Back His work expresses black pride, anger, and courage in the musical rhythms of black speech and the blues. With all their ironic humor, bluntness, and gravity, his poems are still universal in their treatment of elemental human emotions, offering Blake-like nature lyrics, murmuring lullabies, and poignant confessions such as "Mother to Son":. Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So, boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you finds it kinder hard.

Don't you fall now— For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair. In earlier days adult poetry was available to children primarily through selections in general anthologies. With the new abundance of poetry publications of all types and formats, it is of some significance that the anthology still retains its prominence and popularity. Anthologies for children today, those "gatherings of flowers," are overwhelming in their sheer number.

Some few excellent ones convey distinctive textures, tones, and original points of view, but an even greater number of bland, eclectic collections pad real poetry with the pap production of hacks. Traditional anthologies—general, encyclopedic collections similar in structure to enduring treasuries from the past—still abound. Recognizable by their chronological survey treatment which concentrates on the "high spots" of children's poetry, they are often entertaining, as is Iona and Peter Opie's The Oxford Book of Children's Verse , but unfortunately most are static, changing little from decade to decade.

In addition to these overviews, there is a glut of anthologies that concentrate on a theme, as does William Cole's collection, A Book of Animal Poems ; on a poetic genre such as narrative verse in Rising Early: Then too, paralleling the modern realistic children's novel, many of the collections emphasize bold, colloquial, and experimental language, such as is found in Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle … and Other Modern Verse , while others probe the intoxicating and tragic experiences of urban life as depicted in On City Streets: An Anthology of Poetry Like contemporary historical fiction for children which excels in its exploration of prehistoric life, anthologies of primitive poetry for children are abundantly anthologized; one, Out of the Earth I Sing: Poetry and Songs of Primitive Peoples of the World , compiled by Richard Lewis , returns children's attention to the primal dream roots of poetry from the often ironic, self-conscious, and overly cerebral verse being written for them today.

These chants and songs from the childhood of the human race find distant music in much of children's own poetry. In a minor key, it echoes the more complex poetic imagery of primitive peoples in such qualities as openness, vulnerability, and intense concentration on living. Children's natural ease in the poetic form has been recognized as never before in the sixties and seventies. There has been as well a growing movement of encouragement in the schools and libraries of the inner-city ghettos and of the suburbs to bring children together not only to read, but also to write, poetry. Beginning with the pioneer work Miracles: Poems by Children of the English-Speaking World , compiled by Richard Lewis , voluminous amounts of their work have been enthusiastically published.

Although much of that poetry has not been worthy of the acclaim, it definitely holds for children a therapeutic value, providing them with an experience of language enrichment and an insight into the creative joy involved in self-expression. It also is helping to restore the spontaneous and natural connection children develop with poetry in their early years, a connection that is often broken as prose becomes the accepted language of reality and purpose. Poetry is now approached in schools and creative writing workshops in a more spontaneous and oral celebration of the art.

The best of the poetry children write reveals a fluid play with language, a depth of emotion and imagination, and an uncanny ability to achieve, without practiced technique, natural poetic effects such as those of the self-taught bat-poet who "just made it like holding your breath. Much of the poetry written by children today seems a far cry from the fresh, primarily lyric and nature images of Miracles, and even farther from the exuberant street and game rhymes invented by children in the oral tradition of childhood's subculture.

While still brash and startling in poetic language, the subject matter is likely to be the misery, anger, and courage of ghetto and minority life in the inner city, not surprisingly paralleling that of adult poems for children. Poems in I Heard a Scream in the Street: Poetry by Young People in the City , selected by Nancy Larrick, range from those with a musing, introspective tone to those with a stronger, more muscular language and challenging spirit.

They vary in poetic craft from the skilled to the naive, but in subject matter they almost invariably speak in anguish of alienation from and despair of their environment. An urban ghetto limits a child's experience.

Poetry Books for Children

The book should be required reading for all administrators of large cities. Like Ann Frank's diary, this collection is a gripping testimony of children's capacity for courage, endurance, and compassion in unflinching poetry and shadowy expressionistic drawings that depict the fear, horror, and brief moments of hope or beauty experienced by the condemned Jewish children. The poetry of children is perhaps more interesting to adults than to other children, because it gives them an insight into children's thoughts which are more candidly realistic and colloquial than the artificial, first-person confessional of the problem novel and more authentic and tough in statements of emotional needs than Albert Cullum's disingenuous attempts at a first-person, child lament in the ironic, nihilistic poems of The Geranium on the Window Sill Just Died, but Teacher You Went Right On Despite the amount of pressure from the adult world, children can still write with a living sense of wonder, as in this six-year-old's poem of a whale's birth in There's a Sound in the Sea … A Child's Eye View of the Whale I have just taken birth out of dark hot mother.

I know I have because I can feel the cool water below me. It is not a nice day because I can feel the drops of rain on my back. My tail was all cramped when I came out. Richard Lewis, who consciously brought children's poetry to world attention with Miracles, speaks of all children when he writes in Miracles that it "will serve as a testament to the power and value of the poetic vision that is an integral part of childhood.

Recognizing the spirited continuation of tradition from the past, it is intriguing to speculate on the future of children's poetry. Ian Serraillier discusses its changing role, which he sees as shifting from the printed page in a return to oral tradition through the electronic media of radio and television:. All art forms, if they are to survive, must adapt to new conditions, and poetry is no exception. If, … this is to mean some measure of escape from the printed page, that is no bad thing: If he's still around in the distant future, whatever the outward changes, he will probably still be a curious mixture of creator, interpreter and craftsman.

Poetry written for children at this time in its history has never been so much a part of poetry in general; poets and parents, along with critics and educators have finally put into practice the belief that adult and children's verse are indistinguishable. One may well agree with Naomi Lewis's claim, "Today we think that it is not necessary to write special verses for young or old; a true poem has something for all readers.

Children's poets today work in any or all forms, adapting them to suit their particular mood and intent. Scanning their works one is struck by the sheer number of competent craftsmen in the field. But while competent skills may offer moments of delighted surprise, flashes of beauty, and unity of music, emotion, and thought, they do not always provide the haunting, quotable memorability which is the hallmark of strong poetry. Despite its various formats, subtlety, and inventiveness, modern children's poetry suffers from an impersonal sameness of style, content, and theme—a lack of distinctive, immediately recognizable voice and vision.

Attempting to speak energetically, to articulate the human experience for children in powerful tones and emotions, it often falls short of its goals. It is undercut by its emphasis on the self-consciously relevant subject matter of pop sociology and its tendency to verbal games and jokes that seem condescending toward children's perceptions.

Forfeited are the tantalizing original thought and glorious music of language that make poetry memorable and quotable. Ironically, the very freedom of form so vigorously sought has made poetry today more closed; the experiments in style, typography, format, and illustration have fixed poetry to the page, so that its words do not linger to haunt the imagination. There is a sprinkling of poets, among them Charles Causley, Theodore Roethke, Ted Hughes, and David McCord, whose work is of a caliber far beyond the overwhelming mass of quantity and mediocrity that constitutes contemporary children's poetry.

But even these substantial talents do not achieve the universality of childhood vision and musical power that bestowed upon Walter de la Mare the title of "the children's poet. Robert Frost's definition of poetry as a voyage of discovery beginning in delight and ending in wisdom still applies to contemporary children's poetry, although today's voyage may be more turbulent and hazardous than in the past. In the work of the best children's poets there remains that ineffable property which cannot be explained, which mysteriously slips into the poem, transfiguring a technical structure from a work of merely superior craftsmanship into an intellectual, imaginative, and sensuous unity.

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Re-entering the charmed circle of Dylan Thomas 's images, one realizes that in children's poetry, as in all poetry, "you're back again where you began. You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in.

Scott, Foresman, , p. Walter de la Mare, "Introduction. Faber and Faber, , , p. Ian Serraillier, "Poetry Mosaic: Writers on Writing for Children Harmondsworth: Kestrel, , p. Bodley Head, , p. Cats and Bats and Things with Wings: Drawings by Milton Glaser. The Mother Goose Treasury. The Hill of the Fairy Calf.

Drawings by Edward Gorey. A Book of Animal Poems. De la Mare, Walter. Embellished by Alec Buckels. The Faber Book of Nursery Verse. A Book of Poems. Lettering by Ray Barker. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Favorite Poems for Young Readers. Wood engravings by Thomas W. Ann at Highwood Hall: Don't You Turn Back. Woodcuts by Ann Grifalconi. Pictures by Leonard Baskin. I Am the Darker Brother: Drawings by Benny Andrews. I Never Saw Another Butterfly: A Bat Is Born: I Heard a Scream in the Street: Poetry by Young People in the City.

Macmillan of Canada, Pictures by Frank Newfeld. Nicholas Knock and Other People: Poems by Children of the English-Speaking World. Out of the Earth I Sing: Poetry and Songs of Primitive Peoples of the World.

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The Malibu and Other Poems. For Me to Say: Rhymes of the Never Was and Always Is. Drawings by Henry B. One at a Time: His Collected Poems for the Young. It Doesn't Always Have to Rhyme. Drawings by Malcolm Spooner. Now We Are Six. Decorations by Ernest H. When We Were Very Young. An Anthology of Poetry. Opie, Iona, and Opie, Peter. The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book. Story Poems and Ballads of the 20th Century. Drawings by Anne Netherwood. Dirty Dinky and Other Creatures: A Nursery Rhyme Book. The Challenge of the Green Knight. Robin in the Greenwood: Ballads of Robin Hood.

A Child's Garden of Verses. The Wind Has Wings: Mary Alice Downie and Barbara Robertson, comps. Unexamined assumptions about poetry often go hand-in-hand with unexamined assumptions about childhood. Poets, like children, are thought to have access to some originary, mystical language of the unconscious. The language of poetry is thought to be "other"—archaic, grounded in rhythm and play, as Jacqueline Rose points out, in opposition to narrative fiction "as the forward progression of advancing literary form" Poetry in contemporary America is considered a specialized language, something we often put away with childish things:.

Classifying "otherness" in language as infantile or child-like reduces it to a stage we have outgrown, even if that stage is imbued with the value of something cherished as well as lost. In the end, the very association of linguistic rhythm and play with childhood becomes a way of setting the limit to what we are allowed to conceive of as a language which does not conform to the normal protocols of representation and speech.

Classifying "otherness" in language is a way of delineating and circumscribing language communities. Certain others—children and poets—may be nostalgically cherished, and simultaneously diminished. Poetic language is thought to bear a magical relationship to what it signifies. Like childhood, poetry is thought to signify universal, even inarticulate, truth. Lyric poetry the dominant twentieth-century mode is characterized by its supposed sincerity and authenticity, innocent, genuine, and precious like children's play.

Often in this pretense of authenticity, its real value as a complex discourse constructing meaning is obscured. Thus, there are contradictions in the way we view both poetic language and children. Poetry is both complex, artificial, formally conceived expression and it is work, but in postmodern America it is rarely thought of as serious work; it is marginalized like children and children's literature. Relegated to the specialization of the expert, albeit an expert in language play, the activity of poetry increasingly becomes a marginal utility in a marketplace culture.

Unlike fiction, which at least has commercial potential, the rewards of poetry are realized by grants, academic appointments, or stints as poet-in-the-schools. In The Child as Poet: Poetry dies in the schools too often because in this society it is not respected. It is tacked onto language arts, it is mutilated by gimmickry, it is castigated as a frill. It is thought of as some esoteric region of the mind, as a luxury. The first contemporary practitioners of the poetry-in-the-schools movement were poets somewhat outside the mainstream of then-dominant verse cultures—they were typically New York School figures like Ron Padgett, and most prominently Kenneth Koch—descendants of the raw side of the anthology wars of Kenneth Koch professes a belief in "taking children seriously as poets" but at the same time subscribes to the romantic myth that "children have a natural talent for writing poetry and anyone who teaches them should know that" Taking as his model the university writing workshop, he subscribes to the idea that creative writing cannot really be taught:.

Teaching really is not the right word for what takes place: I helped them to do this by removing obstacles, such as the need to rhyme, and by encouraging them in various ways to get tuned in to their own strong feelings, to their spontaneity, their sensitivity, and their carefree inventiveness. Even though one may question Koch's romantic rhetoric here, one need not condemn it wholesale: Although it is a romantic ideology, it is nevertheless one that insists on the value of the child's imagination.

And yet, another remark of Koch's reveals ulterior, less defensible impulses behind the project of teaching children to write poetry:. The [children's] poems were beautiful, imaginative, lyrical, funny, touching. They brought in feelings I hadn't seen in children's poetry before.

They reminded me of my own childhood and of how much I had forgotten about it. They were all innocence, elation, and intelligence. Despite poets' utopian aspirations, this passage indicates the ease with which they may unwittingly become "impresarios" by virtue of the pervasive view of childhood in which the child is constructed in our culture to represent the lost "innocence, elation, and intelligence" of sensitive adults.

Unlike narrative fiction, poetry is a "product" that any child can create with the aid of the right impresario. If the value of children's poetry is located in reminding the adult teacher of his or her own childhood, the professed goal of empowering children as writers becomes problematic. In their recent defense of imagistic free verse as the preferable model for children's poetry, "Meeting the Muse: Rather than recognizing the value in poetry, however, their method appears to rely on a largely naive and discredited theory of language:.

When we look at a word like "sad," for instance, we see only a word, but when we look at a word like "rose," we see a thing. Words like this are transparent: And if they sound like the things they represent as well, like "stone" and "willow," so much the better. Although certainly there is something to be said for Ezra Pound's dictum that poets should "go in fear of abstraction," and for Williams's "no ideas but in things," the theory of language offered here is unconvincing. Gertrude Stein 's most famous quotation shows us, of course, that "rose" is no more "transparent" than "sad" in what sense is any signifier really "transparent?

No critic of adult poetry and indeed no adult poet could get away with such a dubious aesthetic, and yet some notion of children's originary innocence allows us to accept unquestioningly such discredited linguistic notions and to build a pedagogy around it. A pedagogy of childhood becomes linked to a pedagogy of poetry: We do not tell our students that anything goes with their science and math problems, nor even, for that matter, with the prose we teach them to write.

When we give children music lessons, they must learn rules and concepts, many of them by rote; if we applied the pedagogy of the elementary creative-writing classroom to piano lessons, we would end up recognizing how ludicrous that pedagogy is: It seems that children's writing, like poetry for adults, has become a clouded battleground for competing camps of poets with specific political or careerist agendas.

Today, children who are taught to "appreciate" and to write poetry are more often being taught how to consume products according to the particular persuasions of whatever poet happens to be in the schools rather than to recognize and attempt to discover value. Notwithstanding the challenge to the prevailing workshop aesthetic from language poets on one side and neoformalists on the other, there is a sense in which writing-workshop poetry is still valorized, especially in schools. At the same time, this so-called "dominant verse culture" continues to feel vulnerable and threatened, necessitating the teaching of its method of writing as a way of legitimizing its hegemony in academia.

At the university level, graduate writing programs teach the consumption of dominant "free verse" poetry through writing workshops, with the hope that MFA student poets will buy and read and support the work of other MFA teachers and students. With the burgeoning of such programs, the growth industry of poetry in the schools has become both a means of employment for MFAs in a glutted market and a way of conditioning new consumers.

The professionalization of poetry has reified its audience as "other. The idea that an innocent and separate realm of children's poetry should exist at all is questionable at best, and it has led to a narrower, more circumscribed notion of poetry reflected in contemporary anthologies. Despite its questionable linguistic and pedagogic assumptions, the Greenways' essay is useful in implicitly challenging the increasingly parochial view of children's poetry canonized in recent anthologies of poetry for children. Compared to Walter de la Mare's exceptional anthology Come Hither , , Jack Prelutsky's Random House Book of Poetry for Children illustrates the ways in which the range of poetry children are thought to enjoy has narrowed.

On the other hand, Prelutsky defines a "renaissance in children's poetry" separate from the adult canon:. During the last thirty or forty years there has been a renaissance in children's poetry. Many of the best children's poets who ever wrote are writing today. Such contemporary writers as Aileen Fisher, John Ciardi, Lilian Moore, Dennis Lee, and Shel Silverstein, to name a handful, are creating children's poetry that is relevant, understandable, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Such poets, unlike some of their pedantic predecessors, do not seek to educate children in a way that will make them more socially acceptable to adult company. Such speaking from the child represents more of a condescension, almost a colonization, than a genuine attempt to write poems that will evoke a meaningful response from children. Even when excellent contemporary poets are represented, the selections seem too proscribed. Although children may initially share Prelutsky's preference for Lilian over Marianne Moore , we are doing them a disservice if we encourage them to retain that preference into adulthood.

The Greenways make an excellent point when they argue that "We may be teaching students the poetry they like as children, but not the poetry they'll like as adults" However, insofar as they promote dominant workshop verse William Stafford appears to be one of their favorites as a model for children's reading and writing, they impose an equally limiting agenda of their own.

If, as they state, children's "preferences in poetry tend to the rhymed, the repetitive, the metered or rhythmical" , it seems irresponsible to disregard such preferences. Poet James Applewhite argues that the crisis in contemporary poetry involves a "scarcity of value" in the midst of "the melancholy and uncertainty of a culture where all is for sale" I would argue that the narrowing range of children's poetry also arises from that bankruptcy—in which we have come to define both poetry and children as commodities. The challenge to those of us involved with both children and poetry is to facilitate the discovery of poetry's value while recognizing that neither poetry nor childhood derives from some essential, unimperiled human nature.

If, as Susan Willis argues, children have not yet learned "to substitute alienation and commodities for human relationships" 33 , perhaps poetry can help them temper the more negative aspects of socialization. The question of children's poetry is complex. We must pay attention to Rose's corrective to what she calls the "ethos of representation," but affirm with James Applewhite the "essential idea of artistic value.

Keats speaks of "negative capability" as the rare gift of being able to hold several contradictory possibilities in mind without jumping to a conclusion. Schools, with their encouragement of the first student with the right answer, do little to build up a tolerance for this sort of creative tension. If we wish to be of service both to children and to poetry, we must recognize the contradictory nature of our pedagogies. Rather than tricking children into a method, we must help them and each other discover value in art, even as we recognize that the very source of such value resides in its contingency.

Working within and against the social and political institutions that devalue children, we might at least help them negotiate contradictions to discover the valuable creative tension that poetry and all imaginative writing may provide. These "anthology wars" adopted Levi-Strauss's terminology of the "raw" and the "cooked. The binary oppositions fomented by this controversy have set the tone for contemporary debates about experimental versus mainstream poetry. Currently, the "radical" project of the so-called language poets is pitted against the "conservative" project of the neoformalists and neonarrativists, with both sides attacking the so-called mainstream verse culture emblemized by the Iowa Writers' Workshop and other master of fine arts programs.

The most heavily represented poet is, unfortunately, Prelutsky himself. Greenway, William and Betty. Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry. Reprinted from Lopate, Being with Children. Three Centuries of Social Life, 3rd edn, rev. The Life of Christina Rossetti, Oxford: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry. The Horn Book Inc. Ways to Begin Writing Poetry. Oxford University Press, Henry Holt , Smith, Lillian, The Unreluctant Years. She writes poems in a tucked away corner of the house, next to a rubber chicken handbag and Templeton the kiwi.

She has two full collections of poetry, three collaborations and is in over a hundred anthologies. She visits schools to perform her poems and have an amazing time writing with classes. Shauna Darling Robertson was born in Northumberland in and now lives in Somerset. Her poems for adults and children have been set to music, performed by actors, displayed on buses, turned into short films, made into comic art, hung on a pub wall and published in a variety of magazines and anthologies.

His most recent poetry picture book In the Past, illustrated by Matthew Trueman, chronicles life on earth from the Cambrian to the present geologic era, the Quaternary. The delightful In the Past can be bought here. Meanwhile, his debut picture book, Flashlight Night Boyds Mills Press, , has received much critical praise.

His website is here , blog here and Twitter here.

Vivian was first published in , after careers in the theatre, counselling and storytelling. Despite publishing around titles, Viv leads a very busy life away from her keyboard conducting writing workshops for both children and adults, teaching at the University of the West of England and the Edinburgh College of Art, and mentoring new writers and illustrators. She has responded with enthusiasm to invitations from schools and libraries throughout the UK, and has toured from Orkney to Oklahoma, and particularly enjoyed running writing workshops in Ibiza and Majorca.

She is constantly in demand to contribute to collections and anthologies, and one of her poems was included recently in the anthology Wonderland: Alice in Poetry , edited by Michaela Morgan Macmillan. He is a frequent visitor to schools, libraries and festivals as a poetry performer.

If you'd like to follow my poetry blog, or Lola the alert dog, enter your email address and receive notifications of new posts by email. Thank you for visiting! Feeling very happy about this, today. My first true love. I bury my face in your fur, Black, now streaked with white.

You smell of sunshine And golden days of play. You manage to lift your head And look at me with trusting Amber eyes. A part of me forever. Kind hands lift you from me. I will be with you until the end, boy. You will live In my thoughts, the happiest wet-nosed memory of all. But first the pain. Who knew unhappiness Could feel like this? You thump your tail on the stainless-steel table. My heart-bursting wish, Trough burning eyes, To turn back time. Moira Andrew Moira Andrew was born and educated in Scotland, became a primary teacher, worked her way up to Assistant Head, then lectured in education at Craigie College of Education, Ayr before moving to Bristol where she was Head Teacher of a primary school.

His tail would be a river, silver in the sun. For his head, the secret green of forests and deep seas. Deborah Alma Deborah Alma is the Emergency Poet in her vintage ambulance which she takes to schools and libraries and festivals. A scented geranium, red and jaunty in a terracotta pot.

A smug cat, a cosy cat, a passing cat. Here is one of his fabulous poems: Here is her poem! Point was I had the whole place to myself, put telly on, took a bath, rearranged a shelf. Yeah, yeah, fair cop.

Pencils and paper are fine, To draw cat faced butterflies But I really need that glitter For the comets that blast through the skies. Here is one of his poems: Clare Bevan Clare fell in love with poetry when she was very young. Who will bring me the hush of a feather? Who will bring me the shadows that flow? Debra Bertulis Debra Bertulis wanted to be a writer all her life. Monday built our Snowman Sitting proud and fat Tuesday gave him a football scarf And the warmest woolly hat Wednesday gave him button eyes Thursday a carrot nose Friday gave him sticks for arms And Saturday more clothes But Sunday gave bad weather The sky began to cry Sunday took our Snowman We never said goodbye.

Cynthia Cotten Cynthia Cotten has been writing fiction and poetry for young people for more than 30 years. More powerful than the smartest phone, more powerful than a tv remote, more powerful than a hundred apps, my library card unlocks the world and more with a single scan. Paul Cookson Paul has worked as a poet for nearly thirty years and visited around schools, libraries, festivals, front rooms.

And he is a National Poetry Day Ambassador. Everton Football Club commissioned a poem for their season ticket campaign and the Everton Home poem which can be found online and has been played on the big screens at Goodison Park. His latest collection — The Very Best Of Macmillan is out now and contains many of his signature poems — including the favourite, Let No-one Steal Your Dreams — alongside other favourites and new pieces. Where is my red bike? Read more about these titles and the rest of the shortlist in this special category.

Children find Poetry incredibly pleasurable and our selection of books below are broken down into just 2 age ranges to give you some guidance. All the books are perfect for sharing at bedtime and for children to also enjoy alone. Always inspirational; collections of poetry will take the reader into another world. Poetry books for under 7's. Poetry Books for over 7's. Where Zebras Go will lead you leads you on a magical journey across the savannah, into fairytale realms, back into the playground and through the seasons, introducing a whole host of animals along the way.

An exciting debut collection from an up-and-coming poet, covering wide-ranging themes with humour and fun. Sonia Holleyman has a great time with the illustrations too, giving us wonderful close ups of the sploshing, splashing, waving, misbehaving insects. December Book of the Month A series of twelve short, funny poems, one for every month of the year, written with brio by John Yeoman and illustrated by Quentin Blake with all his characteristic vitality and joie de vivre, make this a book to treasure all year round. Illustrations too contain only what is absolutely necessary to capture the action but still fizz with character, personality and humour.

A larger than life collection of poems for a middle grade audience about one wild, hysterical and hilarious Mum. Lovereading Review will follow. Both an engaging guidebook to the major sights of our capital city and a collection of new London poems, this is a lovely book to read aloud and to look at. Six bouncy poems each of which is richly illustrated by award-winning illustrator Nick Sharratt. Burt, Cora, Charlie, Selwin, Ida and Quentin are the six Vikings let loose on a delightful shopping spree in a supermarket in the title poem.

More reflective is The Mermaid and the Shoe. What would a mermaid do with a shoe? There are lots of watery ideas from using it as a little sailing boat to wearing it as a hat! The Tidy Pirate gives pirates an entertaining brush up while Fangsalot imagines what would happen if a vampire bat bit a cat, a cat bit a cow, a cow bit a horse — and so on!

A joyful collection of poems for young children by an author who is completely in tune with her audience! Julia Donaldson celebrates the delights of going to the park, walking the dog, pizza, riding a bike and sliding down the bannisters in poems that are just perfect for reading out loud.

Definitely one to add to the picture book shelf and to return to over and over. Selected by a distinguished independent panel of experts including our editorial expert, Julia Eccleshare, for Diverse Voices - 50 of the best Children's Books celebrating cultural diversity in the UK. A fine collection of poems and rhymes from all over the world, collected together by Elizabeth Hammill, renowned for her support and expertise in the world of children's literature.

A host of fantastic illustrators including Axel Scheffler, Robert Ingpen and Shirley Hughes have donated their work to support Seven Stories, a national archive of British authors and illustrators. From the joys of the seaside to the miseries of the sickbed, this exuberant volume captures to perfection the world of childhood. It is a beautiful gift edition of the classic picture book, with a new introduction by Shirley Hughes.

The artwork by Mar Hernandez is equally beautiful, illustrating the development of life from the big bang to the world as we know it. There are also plenty of opportunities for the very young to join in with poems such as Tippy-Tappy and The Button Bop which they are guaranteed to want to hear again and again! The world-famous rhymes starring cats such as Macavity the Mystery Cat and Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat are beautifully presented in this edition with illustrations by Axel Scheffler best-known for his pictures of the Gruffalo.

Perfect for reading out loud, the poems about the practical cats are both humorous and affectionate, catching the quirky and familiar foibles of all cats. Many of them are crying out to be read aloud, Brontosaurus for example, with its Stomp Swamp Chomp chorus, or My Dog Eats Spaghetti, but others are quieter, to be read, considered and remembered. For children inspired to write their own poetry — and Seigal certainly makes it look fun — there are useful tips and suggestions included too.

Dahl's Gobblefunk is brought to life with full colour illustrations by Quentin Blake making this a delight for fans young and old. When he slips his charges hand in the zoo the result is a dramatic catastrophe. Brian Moses, Roger Stevens Format: A fantastic collection of history poems that conjure up the sights, sounds and smells of the past - both the great events and battles, and ordinary day-to-day activities.

Ties in with the history curriculum for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. The world Eliot describes might be long gone, but Robins makes it totally friendly and recognisable to children. A new cover edition of Read Me, the bestselling poetry anthology with over a quarter of a million copies sold. Read Me contains a poem for every day of the year from the very best modern and classic poets. Rooney is a very exciting new voice. There are poems here on a range of subjects and themes, including some about poetry itself. Mostly short, often rhyming, they play affectionate games with language.

There are laugh out loud poems, and lots for sharing, but this is also collection to take into a quiet corner and relish. Meet a little green alien; then zoom off in your rocket to find space poems, rhymes about mermaids, funny faces and even a greedy robot. This is a fun and playful new collection by an award-winning poet who knows how to inspire and delight young children. Walter de la Mare Format: The two groups mirror one another, and the lines of the poem work equally for both. The night sky is portrayed in wonderful blues and purples, the centre spread in which the witches surge pell-mell down the Milky Way is particularly beautiful.

De la Mare guides his witches through the constellations in his poem, and Rabei illustrates them all, the end papers providing readers with a very special chart of the night sky. A fantastic collection of modern poems all about school from the talented poet Brian Moses. There are rhyming poems and funny poems and lots of poems about teachers - and exactly what they get up to behind the staffroom door and that's just the beginning of the school adventure in this brilliant collection of poems. Jan Dean, Roger Stevens Format: A super new collection of poems featuring a vast range of animals, birds and fish, from the penguin in lost property making a bid for freedom, to the cat that would rather be eating spiders than lapping up milk.

Funny and poignant, there are poems here for every mood from two brilliant, funny and inspiring poets. Certainly the poems deserve to be lived with whole, and the drawings — in choice of subject and viewpoint, response to character and setting — are simply perfect. A lovely, lively and varied collection of verse that invites gleeful participation from its intended audience. In Poems to Perform, Julia Donaldson has chosen poems with performance by children in mind, and her notes and ideas on performing them are included in a special section at the end of the book.

Julia's passionate belief that performance can help children enjoy reading and grow in confidence is informed by her own experience both as a child and now, working with groups of children to bring stories, poems and songs to life. Illustrated throughout with exquisite, expressive lino-cuts by Clare Melinsky, this is a book for teachers, parents, children: Featuring a fantastic range of children's poets and four exciting themes with full-colour illustrations, this is the ideal approach to encourage a love of reading, whilst developing an understanding of poetry, meeting the new requirements of the National Curriculum.

The collection has been carefully selected for children in Year 2 of school and includes helpful parent notes for every poem and a glossary of key terms from the series editor and children's poet, John Foster. It is the second of three poetry collections that will support your child from learning to read in Year 1 through to understanding themes and developing vocabulary in Year 3. This collection of poetry has the perfect balance of engaging rhyme, familiar themes and amusing illustrations to promote a lifelong love of reading.

Poetry is a fun way for children to enjoy learning to read, developing their vocabulary and understanding of ideas and themes. This collection offers a wide range of poems to appeal to all children, from poems about special days such as Christmas or Chinese New Year to poems that are great to read aloud, like 'The Wuzzy Wasps of Wasperton'. A wonderful collection of poems from the much-loved creator of The Gruffalo, all of them perfect for reading aloud. Nick Sharratt has great fun with the illustrations and Vera Victoria Vines, dressed up to the nines, is a particular treat, as is the crazy, mayonnaisy mum serving up ice cream with baked beans, and golden syrup with sardines!

Many of the poems are drawn from the workshops he does with children and young people as well as from his performances. Notes accompanying the poems give insights into his process and encourage children to believe that they are poets too. The poems capture the rap beat and tone, demonstrating the currency and significance of rap as a form, especially for young people. A book that opens doors. More suited to an older reader than that first collection, this is an extraordinarily powerful and moving book.

Each poem offers us glimpses into the life of the main character as he grows, over the course of the collection, from young boy through adolescence to adulthood. Ruth Awolola wonders about our world, the stars beyond, the beings that might live out there and the interconnections between these. A wonderful new anthology of poems by winner of the Queens Medal and the Eleanor Farjeon Award, Do trianglesever get into a tangle when their sides meet their angles?

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A wonderful new children's poetry collection, from a celebrated, award-winning poet. From nature and science to identity, prepare to be transported on a journey through past and present. This collection from John Agard, winner of the Queens Medal and the Eleanor Farjeon Award, explores the wonders of the world - inviting your child to ponder life's questions with lots of fun along the way!

He has to see him.

Poetry Books for Children

Once again, Crossan's free verse form is breathtakingly powerful - always the right word, in the right place, at the right time. Yes, this is harrowing and heartbreaking, but the kindness of the strangers Joe meets in Texas is achingly uplifting, as is the deep bond of love between Joe and Ed. This really is a magnificent feat of writing. A completely refreshing and exciting collection of poetry that will encourage even the most determined poetry avoiders to have a peek and maybe get involved.

And I urge you too. Teachers, parents, grandparents, and kids young and old should have this book.