A Children's Book of Verse

My aunt used to own a copy of this book, and one of my favorite memories is flipping through the pages at her house. The illustrations are magical and shaped my dreams and fantasies as a child, and the poetry is some of the best children's poetry ever written. The first poems I ever memorized were in this book, including "The Sugar-Plum Tree" and "The Duel," both by Eugene Field.

This is a book of poems compiled with children in mind. The illustrations are lovely, bright and colourful, but soft. I grew up with this book and I love it immensely. It includes several poems that I find I enjoy even more as an adult (such as The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes) but there are some that still scare me, ones I couldn't read as a child because the pictures and the subject matter was too grim. One is "The Skippery Boo" which is a giant hind-foot walking growly lion like beast with a fish's tale and strange horns and bats wings. *shudder* and then the others I'm afraid of all seem to revolve around skin-and-bonesy hags! There are plenty of lovely poems (Lochinvar) and fairy poems and things as well as children's classics (The show more Owl and the Pussy Cat, Father William, The Lobster's Quadrille). I'd recommend it to anyone, despite it being out of print. :) show less

I’ve had this book ever since my aunt gave it to me one day as a child. Back then I would flip through the long and short poems looking at the pictures and reading the poems that seemed interesting. This book contains over 100 poems, and each page has an illustration for the story being told. Every picture has vivid colors and great detail; most are realistic looking except for the few verses that are comical. Many children can enjoy flipping through this book even without reading the verses. The characters are a good mix of normal animals, pets trotting about in human clothing and people (royalty and normal folk).

There are some very unique and interesting stories, some I personally thing are perfect for a child and others I’m not show more sure are the best. A few of the poems here I never fully understood till I was older, such stories as The Highwayman, The Dustman, My Mother said or Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe. Oh yes, there is a story by Mr Poe in this collection just like there are plenty of other famous authors like Lewis Carroll and Alfred Lord Tennyson. A few of their worlds listed sit by sit with lesser known writers like Ogden Nash,

This collection is all about encouraging children’s imaginations, all the poems are a great big mixture of different times and places such as American cow boys and wondering Scottish men meant to open the children up to different viewpoints. I think that this book has done the entire above very well. show less

Wonderful poems with some very scary illustrations by the talented E Kincaid- belonged to my daughter and she loved to hear t hem read out but couldnt bear the long nosed witches etc!