Poetry for Busy Children and Their Parents

You’re waiting in line at the grocery store, or in the doctor’s office, and your kids are getting impatient. Maybe your child is asking for one more story, but it’s getting really late. Perhaps your child has gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, and the world is looking bleak. These are perfect times to share poetry.

Besides sheer enjoyment, sharing poetry with children has many advantages. Most poems are short, so you don’t need a long attention span. Poetry can be about anything, so whether your child’s passions are dinosaurs or stars, you can find lots of poems to match those interests. Many poems are delightfully silly. Poetry often encourages you to see the world in a different way. Poets expose readers to unusual vocabulary. Many poems rhyme and help children become more aware of sound patterns. Many poems play with words, and are just fun to say. Poems beg to be repeated, which aids in developing smooth reading. Plus, if you learn a poem by heart, the words and images are yours forever.

Here’s a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry, collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, is my favorite book for the youngest child. The 60-odd poems reflect a young child’s world – from tantrums (“I’m the no-no bird, that’s right, that’s me. I live up in the Tantrum Tree) – to birthdays (“Your birthday cake is made of mud because I cannot cook”) and are accompanied by bright, expressive illustrations. The large type makes this ideal for early readers.

Nina Crews has taken the old nursery rhymes and breathed new life into them with her Neighborhood Mother Goose. Full-color computer-manipulated photos of city children at play leap off the page. You’ll see here what pickled peppers really look like as a small boy climbs among the giant jars.

The importance of sounds makes poetry wonderful for sharing out loud. In Paul Fleischman’s Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, celebrating the insect world, the verses are designed to be read by two readers at once, sometimes speaking alternately, sometimes chorally, and sometimes echoing each other, creating a musical duet.

The natural world is an inspiration for many poets. Joyce Sidman’s latest collection, Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night, is a jewel of bookmaking, combining enchanting poems of night creatures, richly detailed prints, and fascinating facts on a sidebar. The poetry, art, and science create a multi-layered experience, which leaves one with a profound respect for the wonders of nature:

To all of you who crawl and creep

Who buzz and chirp and hoot and peep,

Who wake at dusk and throw off sleep

Welcome to the night.

While some poets find inspiration in the grandeur of nature, Valerie Worth in All the Small Poems is amazed at the most commonplace things. You’ll never look at a safety pin in the same way again, after reading Worth’s poem about it.

The element of surprise figures importantly in Shel Silverstein’s poetry. In his first volume Where the Sidewalk Ends, you’ll meet Jimmy Jet who turned into a TV set, get a sure-fire recipe for a hippopotamus sandwich, and find out what might happen if you were one inch tall. You’ll laugh out loud at some of the poems, be tickled at the silliness of others, and pause to reflect at still others (“I will not play at tug o war, I’d rather play at hug o war”).

Jack Prelutsky is another beloved poet for children. In New Kid on the Block, Prelutsky considers all manner of things you probably never thought of before. You’ll learn why an alligator wouldn’t make a good pet, why you should be glad your nose is on your face, and how it feels to fall off a mountain. James Stevenson’s pen-and-ink sketches complement the quirky verses.

In Paul Janeczko’s collection of poems, The Place My Words Are Looking For, 39 contemporary poets are featured, accompanied by short essays by the poets talking about what inspired them to write. Photos of each poet are included, so you feel as if you’re having a little chat with them. Themes include friendship, feelings, parents, school, and sports. A budding writer 9 years and up would cherish this volume.

Concrete poetry is a special form that is written in the shape of the subject. In Brad Burg and Rebecca Gibbon’s Outside the Lines, the words skip, bounce, and slide across the page as they revel in the games kids play. After reading some concrete poems, children might be tempted to try their hand at one.

A youngster who already enjoys poetry and would like to learn about all the different kinds would get a kick out of A Kick in the Head: an Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms, selected by Paul B. Janeczko. Janeczko describes and gives examples of 29 different forms, from haiku to limerick, from acrostic to blues.

Poetry grows on you.

The more you read, the more you want to read.

Plant the seed!