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Bookshelf

a survey of recent poetry books 
recommended for young readers

A list of books and comments excerpted from Robert Hull's article 'What hope for children's poetry?' a survey of recent poetry published for young readers (Books For Keeps, issue No. 126, January 2001).

Anthologies of special note for 7 - 12 year olds:

• Fiona Waters' Time for a Rhyme is "splendid".
  (selected by Fiona Waters, ill. Ailie Busby, Orion, 1 85881 695 5, £10 hbk)

• Veronique Tadjo's Talking Drums, "because, despite Judith Gleason and others, African poetry seems not to be much read".
  (A & C Black, 0 7136 5397 3, £9.99 hbk)

• Roger McGough's Poems about Love, "for its liberating round-the-world, across-centuries feel".
  (ed. Roger McGough, ill. Chloe Cheese, Kingfisher, 0 7534 0337 4, £5.99 pbk)

• Anne Harvey's Shades of Green, which is "engaged, pulls things in from everywhere, and risks Willam Barnes".
  (ed. Anne Harvey, ill. John Lawrence, Red Fox, 0 09 925521 9, £4.99 pbk)

• Tony Bradman's Werewolf Granny for its poems by children.
  (ed. Tony Bradman, ill. Colin Paine, Bloomsbury, 0 7475 4486 7, £3.99 pbk)

Humorous Collections (singled out for being "well-crafted"):

• Lindsay MacRae's How to Avoid Kissing Your Parents in Public
  (ill. Steven Appleby, Puffin, 0 14 130551 7, £3.99 pbk)

• Georgie Adams' Pumpkin Pie and Puddles
  (ill. Selina Young, Dolphin, 1 85881 718 8, £3.99 pbk) 

• Valerie Bloom's The World is Sweet
  (ill. Debbie Lush, Bloomsbury, 0 7475 4750 5, £6.99 hbk)

Believable Creature Fictions

• Kit Wright's Dolphinella, a "delicious picture-book".
  (ill. Peter Bailey, Scholastic, 0 590 13355 1, £4.99 pbk)

• Sandy Brownjohn's In and Out the Shadows - well-crafted with "respect for the language".
  (ill. Oliver Gaiger, Oxford, 0 19 276246 X, £3.99 pbk)

• Carol Ann Duffy's Meeting Midnight, which is as enjoyable for adults as for children.
  (ill. Eileen Cooper, Faber, 0 571 20120 2, £4.99 pbk)

Hull cites Christopher Reid's All Sorts as his all-around favourite, for its skill, virtuosity and technical soundness - "a book that every in-service gathering ought to read through out loud twice".  (All Sorts by Christopher Reid, ill. Sara Fanelli, Ondt and Gracehoper, 161 York Way, London N7 9LN, 0 9522370 1 6, £7.50 pbk)

The Works (ed. Paul Cookson) "is a nice fat inexpensive winner of a collection which contains 'every kind of poem you'll need for the Literacy Hour'. I'd like the book a lot, if it didn't perfectly illustrate the conveniently symbiotic bond between totalitarian curriculum and publishing project... A lot of good and very good stuff, a lot that's not so good, a lot that's missing - poems from the rest of the world and the far past, poems in translation, poems by children." (Macmillan, 0 330 48104 5, £4.99 pbk)

He concludes: "Children might read - and re-read - not just two or three poems each, in anthologies, but lots of poems by someone - Christopher Reid, Carol Ann Duffy, John Mole, Jenny Joseph, Irene Rawnsley, Gerda Mayer, Valerie Bloom... It would be nice to think of children learning to 'inhabit' poetry that way..." 

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