Something Wonderful: Three Poetry Anthologies for Children

Poetry is underappreciated. Perhaps it is because people had to struggle through interpreting poetry in high school literature classes and decided that it was too difficult, or perhaps it is because people simply prefer to be either informed or enthralled by their reading material. Whatever the case, I want to recommend three books of poetry — all excellent anthologies compiled for children, and all out of print. I owned these books as a child and paged through them again and again. I treasured them enough that I still have them today.

The oldest of the trio is The Big Golden Book of Poetry. It was originally published in 1947 and, judging from the inscription inside the book, it was probably my first book of poetry, since my grandmother gave it to me when I was an infant (this says a lot about my family). It’s possible the book belonged to my father before me, although my granny may have given me a new copy. I can’t resist sharing my grandmother’s message to me here:

To Kate on her first Christmas.

I know you’re going to love the ‘written word’ as much as most of your family.

I’ve taken the liberty of starring your father’s favorite poems which were first read to him — over and over! His choice is the very last poem, “There was once a puffin.” Hope you like it, too.

Among the poems she starred were Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Swing” and “The Little Land,” James Whitcomb Riley’s “Little Orphant Annie” and “The Raggedy Man,” and Rachel Field’s “The Animal Store,” a poem which also enchanted me. To this day, I still think of that poem and imagine going on a shopping spree for pets (though I’d need far more than the $100 mentioned in first line).

I also really loved Mildred Plew Meigs’ “Moon Song,” in part because of the mermaids and in part because of the sheer beauty of the language — the rhymes and rhythm of the poem.

Zoon, zoon, cuddle and croon–
Over the crinkling sea,
The moon man flings him a silvered net
Fashioned of moonbeams three.

 

The volume is beautifully illustrated and well worth chasing down.

The Golden Treasury of Poetry is enormous and is organized by theme, including poems about “Creatures of Every Kind,” poems about people, and poems that tell stories (my favorite section, which includes “True Thomas,” “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” and “The Tale of Custard the Dragon”). The book is one to grow into; there are poems that appeal to very young children, like “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” as well as excerpts from Shakespeare and the gruesome poem “The Inchcape Rock.” Like The Big Golden Book of Poetry it is illustrated. It also includes commentary by Louis Untermeyer. It was first published in 1959.

I went through a stage in childhood when I put a sticker from the National Wildlife Federation inside each of my favorite books, and this treasury was graced with one of those stickers.

My copy of Piping Down the Valleys Wild includes the blurb “Poetry for the Young of All Ages,” but most of the poems were probably selected to appeal to children in elementary school; it has fewer “grown up” poems than the Golden Treasury, though it does include poems like “Ariel’s Song” from The Tempest and Robert Frost’s “Acquainted With the Night.” Like the Golden Treasury, it is organized by topic. The most modern of the books (it was first published in 1968), it includes poets who are not in the other volumes I’ve recommended, such as Shel Silverstein and Gwendolyn Brooks. Although there are poems in this book that are also in the other ones, I keep it because of the many poems that aren’t in them.

What are your favorite poetry anthologies for children? Did you love them enough to hang onto them?