A must have! ( )

NA

Definitely an oldie but a goodie that one will treasure for years to come. Within this book there is a collection of such great names such as T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Carl Sandburg and so many more that it would forever just to name a third of them. And you will find yourself reading over the poems and crying to yourself if you were raised with poetry, "I remember that one!"

The compiler did a great job of combing similar poetry together while writing a small introduction to the category and in some cases even writing a small bio for the poet or explaining some of the poem itself or even while he included it so there is some brain-food to go with the soothing poetry itself. Furthermore you have two indexes - one for first lines and one for poets - plus the lengthy Table of Contents to make yours search much easier.

So why only four stars if I thought this was such a good book?

First, of all William's Blake "Tyger" was misspelled. Most of the time I would have been able to let it slide but there were other poems with other archaic words so it didn't make sense to modernize this one and let the others go for the beauty of Blake's main poem is the fact of the spelling.

Second, some of the poets that I am interested weren't included so it isn't a heavy extension although it is a great variety to begin with.

And finally some of the drawings were a bit graphic, especially if went into looking closely at the pictures. I am not warning kids away from this book since more people should be introduced to poetry but I am going to give warning on that.

Otherwise all the perks outweigh the cons for this beautiful work.... ( )

The Best Choice for a single volume of poetry for reading to children. It has many excellent illustrations that draw children into the poems. The selections are highly appealing to children, and include both well known poems and authors, and some lesser known poems and authors as well. It is organized by subject matter: a chapter of animal poems, one chapter on people, another chapter of stories in poems, one for humorous poems, and so on. Swearing and dark poetry themes are avoided, something I appreciate in a book I want to give unsupervised to my children. Whether you know a lot about poetry, know very little about poetry, or hate poetry, this is a book to read and share. It is an essential volume.

Loved reading these poems and limricks as a child. ( )