By Sheila Welch
Rhymes, rhythms, and creative language make poetry fun for children of all ages.
Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein, published posthumously, is a collection of poems for a wide range of ages. It offers readers the opportunity to enter his world, a strange place where the outrageous and the profound are separated by the thickness of a page. Silverstein entices young readers to follow him as though he were the Pied Piper of poetry.
Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Eric Beddows won the Newbery Award. All the poems focus on insects and challenge two people to read them aloud simultaneously “as in a musical duet.” With an unusual format and detailed pencil drawings, this book is best suited for fourth and fifth graders.
Something Big Has Been Here by Jack Prelutsky with drawings by James Stevenson is a collection by a popular creative pair. Most of the poems are zany and funny and will entertain children in preschool to fifth grade. Nearly all the poems have outlandish titles such as “”My Fish Can Ride a Bicycle,” but a few speak to the heart such as “Don’t Yell at Me!” and “I Am Tired of Being Little.”
Sail Away features poems about the sea by the famous African-American port, Langston Hughes. The book is made accessible for young children by the deeply hued, cut-paper collages by master illustrator Ashley Bryan. The book is brand new, and its combination of words and art make it truly a book for all ages and a welcome addition to any home library.
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost and illustrated by Susan Jeffers is a perfect book to share with your children now that winter is getting ready to pounce on us. This single poem becomes the text for a stunning picture book and introduces children of any age to another famous American poet. Jeffers brings her own interpretation to the poem, using black and white with small areas of muted color to create a quiet landscape broken only by sleigh bells and the “sweep of easy wind and downy flake.” The depiction of the narrator/poet making a snow angel and hugging a friend while children offer hay to his “little horse” softens the tone and gives a child-friendly air to the whole book.
About Sheila
Sheila Kelly Welch is a mother, grandmother and retired teacher. She counts among her children’s fiction books LITTLE PRINCE KNOW-IT-ALL and A HORSE FOR ALL SEASONS. Sheila's novel, WAITING TO FORGET, has been selected by Bank Street College and Pennsylvania School Library Association for their lists of best-books-of-the-year. Her most recent stories, MESS-UP MOLLY and BIG CAT AND KITTEN, are published on-line by MeeGenius.
