Diana Secker Larson

I absolutely love the size and feel of Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series: each book is the perfect size in my hand, has a ribbon bookmark, and has just the right number of words per page for a poetry book. So I was delighted to see a book dedicated to lullabies and children’s poetry.

Lullabies and Poems for Children is a great poetry collection. I enjoyed the mix of lullaby lyrics, traditional children’s nursery rhymes, and poems for parents. The downside is that it is a mix! It is show more organized by theme, including “Watching over Me,” “The Voyages of Sleep,” “Stories in Song,” “Nonsense,” “Silly Stories,” and many more categories. Because there was much overlap between the subjects, it seemed to lack any structure. I felt the organization could have been better, with separation between the generic nursery rhymes and more mature, developed poetry.

Also, lullabies are mixed in with other poems; if you are looking for the lullabies to sing to your child, you need to already be familiar with the melodies because this book doesn’t have any music.

Despite the negatives, I love the poems in this volume, and I love the perfect size of the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets.

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Independent Reading Level: All grades