“I know well that only the rarest kind of best in anything can be good enough for the young.”
—Walter de la Mare Bells and Grass, 1942.

POETRY WORTH READING:
A FEW OF MY FAVORITES: Traditional and Visual/Concrete Works

• Under the Sun and the Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. (Our favorite “go to” book of poems when my kids were 3-6 yrs. old.)

• Moon, Have You Met My Mother by Karla Kuskin. Classic. I love the untitled poem that begins... “Under my hood I have a hat and under that my hair is flat...” This poem was made into its own little picture book too.

• Outside The Lines: Poetry at Play by Brad Burg. This is concrete poetry in motion.

• A Poke In The I edited by Paul Janeczko. A really, really cool concrete poetry anthology for kids illustrated by Chris Raschka.

• Mirror, Mirror: a book of reversible verse by Marilyn Singer. Wish I had thought of this one! A Clever and an interesting way to present fairytale lore. These poems are great fun-nuf said!

• Lemonade: and Other Poems Squeezed From a Single Word by Bob Raczka. Described as “part anagram, part rebus, and part riddle,” these poems are an example of unique writing right down to the letter.

• Any book written by Shel Silverstein. (Once the kids were 5 and up, these books lived right on the bedside table.)

• Nest, Nook and Cranny by Susan Blackaby. An award winning book that explores animal habitats. Unique format includes an educational index about writing poetry.

• Knock at a Star: A Child’s Introduction to Poetry ed. by X.J. Kennedy and Dorothy Kennedy. Includes a fun section on “show and spell” poems.

• Switching On the Moon- A Very First Book of Bedtime Poems collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters. So much fun, it won’t put you to sleep!