Your favorite childrens poems

[kdescalzi]

Hi there,

Please let me know what are your favorite poem collections or books for children!!

TIA

[parsley]

It's old-fashioned but as a kid I loved _When We Were Very Young_ and _Now We Are Six_ by A.A. Milne.  My three year old loves them now too.

[ollyoxenfree]

My all-time favourite book for children about poetry is Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, but beware it is a little sad and it's directed for children about age 9 or so. It provides an introduction to some wonderful poetry and should inspire a child to explore some poets that they might not "meet' for a while. 

Also: 

Mother Goose

Dennis Lee

Shel Silverstein

The 20th Century Children's Poetry Collection - Jack Prelutsky

A Family of Poems - Caroline Kennedy 

Jabberwocky - Lewis Carroll 

 Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T.S. Eliot

A Child's Garden of Verses - R.L. Stevenson

[TEAK's Mom]

Talking Like the Rain is a wonderful anthology. We have also gotten a lot of mileage out of Poetry Speaks to Children (it has a marvelous cd with authors like Roald Dahl and Robert Frost and J.R.R. Tolkien reading their own work).

[Daffodil]

You definitely want A.A. Milne and Shel Silverstein.  And one or more collections, but I don't have one I like more than any other.  We also loved Orangutan Tongs, by Jon Agee (tongue twister poems that are really fun to read.)

[Owen'nZoe]

My children both loved Yellow Elephant: A Bright Beastiary by Julie Paschis. The poems are fun, and the illustrations that accompany them are gorgeous.

[hildare]

!!!  Frankenstein makes a sandwich.  the best.  ever.  (if your kids are into spooky-themed things like vampires, etc)

[SweetSilver]

Mother Goose!  Still!  I am amazed at the sticking power of all these poems, and we enjoy discovering new anthologies with different pictures, complete version of the poems, etc.  When I'm in a silly mood, I like to try to make them rhyme, like "wander/ gander".

They also enjoy the old Childcraft poetry and story collections that we read at their Grandma's.  There are a lot of fun poems in those!

[hildare]

ohhh.. i know this is an old thread but i just came across Dark emperor and other poems of the night...

that book is straight up gorgeous.  i had seen the book songs of the water boatman back when it came out (same author) and those are fantastic, just beautiful books.  they're little poems about things in the natural world, the water boatman is about pond life and dark emperor is about what it says, porcupettes and moths and owls, etc.  so so so cool.