Review: POETRY Speaks to Children, Ed. Elise Paschen, Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2005 This book arrived in the mail yesterday and I had to move it to the top of a foot-high pile of books I've been asked to review. The publisher's introduction says it's strongly visual, full of storytelling, packed with sound (a CD is included, with 52 poems from 36 poets, many recorded for the first time), ageless, and a mix of classic poetry with some new ones - all correct. Here are 95 poems from 73 poets, including some old favorites who'd be in anyone's selection - Frost's 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening', Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky', and many more... Other classical poets include Shakespeare, Kipling, W.B. Yeats, A. A. Milne, William Blake ('The Tyger'), and R. L. Stevenson. What themes do you want in good children's poetry? Let me tantalize you: Creativity? ('Inside this pencil/ crouch words that have never been written...') Nature? ('Like eagle... Circled in blue sky/ In wind, swept our hearts clean/ With sacred wings') Imagination? ('Why catch planes when you could take a bird/ And just land anyplace?'; 'My sister saw a dinosaur... I said dinosaurs are dead./ She said she saw it in her head') Very Important Information for Children? ('Stalagmites up! Stalactites down!'; 'Halfway up the stairs/ Isn't up,/ And isn't down' ) Nonsense? ('John Smith and his son, John Smith/ And his son's son John, and-a-one/ And-a-two and-a-three...') Thoughtful? (Best poem to encourage 'minority ethnic kids' I've ever read is James Berry's 'Okay, Brown Girl, OKAY') Ordinary things? ('Ice cream on a stick,/ Covered with cold, shiny chocolate...'; 'Every time I climb a tree/ I scrape a leg/ Or skin a knee....') Nostalgia for older ten-year-olds? ('First it is "copying out,"... / smells of inkwells rise in the classroom hush...') Basic self-help philosophy for kids? ('Crying only a little bit/ is no use... Happiness was hiding in the last tear...') The pictures on every page are... what's the best word? Well 'brilliant' will cover them all! Our ten-year-old grandson will receive this wonderful book as a Christmas present in a couple of weeks. Let me confess to a tiny disappointment: a whole genre of 'Boystuff' - great historical yarns and adventure poems - I enjoyed as a ten-year-old is missing. Although this collection takes ten-year-olds of all ages into the magical realms of fantasy and imagination it will probably be appreciated by girls more than boys (and I suspect women had a greater role in the selection). But that should not deter you from buying it: boys-and-imagination should be encouraged to mix more... And a tiny caveat: it's 'majorly' (as kids now say) American, except for many of the classical poets. That in a sense doesn't matter any more: children all over the world venture daily into American life via the media. (You'll love the one about a baseball game). Finally, most reading this on a 'Christian' website like this might wonder about two of the offerings here - C. K. Williams' 'Gas' ('There's a land called France/ that has an old law,/ a law that might make you/ drop your jaw,/ for what it proclaims/ in words very clear,/ is that FARTING/ IS FORBIDDEN HERE...') One of the funniest poems in the book, I reckon! The other is Dennis Lee's 'Mrs Mitchell's Underwear'. Also good clean fun! And of course the last poem (Dennis Lee's 'The Coming of Teddy Bears') encourages all children to sleep well: 'The air is quiet/ Round my bed./ The dark is drowsy/ In my head./ The sky's forgetting/ To be red,/ And soon I'll be asleep.' Shalom! Rowland Croucher
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