The Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children’s Poems

The Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children’s Poems, edited by Donald Hall, is a collection of American poetry throughout the centuries. Both popular poems and more obscure ones are contained in this wonderful collection.

The Preface is extremely helpful because it provides a brief history of poetry in the United States, starting with Native American cradle songs and moving on to current poems. The poems are arranged in chronological order; this was helpful because the reader can see the evolution of poetry throughout time. Older poetry is really no different from newer poetry.

One of my favorite poems was “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, which is the poem version of what I know as “’Twas the Night before Christmas”. It brought back a lot of childhood memories to read this poem again, since I don’t actually know all of the words. I also especially like the picture accompanying this poem; it is an old-fashioned picture of Santa Claus, and he just looks so jolly and nice. Another poem that reminds me of my childhood is “The Three Little Kittens”, which is about the three kittens who lost their mittens. I used to have a book version of this poem and I always wanted my mom to read it to me before bed. Toward the end of the book, there are some poems that are written in languages other than English and then also reprinted in English. Including these poems is such a great idea as America becomes more and more diverse and children increasingly come to school speaking languages other than English.

Since this is a children’s book, I started out thinking that some of these poems might not be interesting to children, but I changed my mind. I thought that while I appreciate Emily Dickinson’s poem “I’m nobody, who are you?”, a child might not like it as much. The editor mentions that he hopes this collection of poetry will be read aloud to children by their parents, so perhaps a poem like Dickinson’s would be made more interesting if it were read aloud to a child instead of the child reading it him- or herself. There are also a lot of poems that I think children would really enjoy reading or hearing. For example, I remember really liking the poem “The Purple Cow” (“I never saw a Purple Cow/I never hope to see one/But I can tell you, anyhow,/I’d rather see than be one!) when I was in kindergarten or first grade, so I’m sure kids would still enjoy it now. The pictures also contribute to the kid-friendly feel of the book. Each poem had a picture to go with it, whether it was of an animal mentioned in the poem or a character or even a place mentioned.

Even though this is a collection of children’s poetry, adults would enjoy reading it to remember their own childhood and also to simply appreciate the poetry. This book could also be used in a unit on poetry in any grade level. Since the book includes poems of varying difficulty, the teacher could select some that are age-appropriate to study or to contribute to a lesson.