Our "Go To" Poetry Anthology

Because we love poetry, and because it is National Poetry Month after all, I thought I would share some of our favorite poetry books during the month of April.

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Favorite Poems Old and New by Helen Ferris is our "go to" poetry book. This is one anthology that I think no home with children should be without! It has 598 pages filled with over 700 wonderful children’s poems. The plethora of poems are arranged in such enticing categories as "My Almanac", "Little Things That Creep and Crawl and Swim and Sometimes Fly", and "Roundabout the Country, Roundabout the Town". Within its pages are sonnets, ballads, nonsense poems, seasonal poems, and Bible passages. There are poems by Shakespeare and William Butler Yeats, by Christina Rosetti and Emily Dickinson, by Sir Walter Scott and Carl Sandburg, by John Keats and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Some of the verses are quite well known, and some neither of us has heard before, but the poems are well-chosen, carefully selected by Helen Ferris—Helen Ferris whose delightful forward to the book is sure to inspire you to create a life of poetry for your family!

If you have children, I suggest that you buy this book today. If you are a home educator, you need this book. If you are a grandparent, purchase this book for your grandchildren...or keep it at your house and read from it when the little (and bigger) ones come to visit. It will be money well spent.

Commercial ended.

(But I honestly don't receive commission from any sales! ~grin~ )

I will share two poems from the book that my girls chose to memorize: "The Library" (Kati) and "Mice" (Bekah).

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The Library

Barbara A. Huff

It looks like any building

When you pass it on the street,

Made of stone and glass and marble,

Made of iron and concrete.

But once inside you can ride

A camel or a train,

Visit Rome, Siam, or Nome,

Feel a hurricane,

Meet a king, learn to sing,

How to bake a pie,

Go to sea, plant a tree,

Find how airplanes fly,

Train a horse, and of course

Have all the dogs you'd like,

See the moon, a sandy dune,

Or catch a whopping pike.

Everything that books can bring

You'll find inside those walls.

A world is there for you to share

When adventure calls.

You cannot tell its magic

By the way the building looks,

But there's a wonderment within it,

The wonderment of books.

Mice

Rose Fyleman

I think mice

Are rather nice.

Their tails are long,

Their faces small,

They haven't any

Chins at all.

Their ears are pink,

Their teeth are white,

They run about

The house at night.

They nibble things

They shouldn't touch

And no one seems

To like them much.

But I think mice

Are nice.