The Golden Book of Poems for the Very Young

The Golden Book of Poems for the Very Young
selected by Louis Untermeyer
pictures by Joan Walsh Anglund
Western Publishing, 1959, 1971 edition

I love books of poetry for children, especially when it's poetry not necessarily written for children but extracted and made relevant through wistful illustration. Here you'll find works by Blake, Dickinson, Rossetti, Tennyson and more appropriately Lear, Stevenson and Nash, all brought to life by Anglund's adorable hand. Really, how awesome are Giant Golden Books? Perhaps it's the fact that I took a week off for the holidays (thus a few weeks off from my local book haunts), but I've been feeling a renewed excitement about the search and reveling in the finds. Old children's books are an endless font of joy for me. I have the best hobby in the world, made all the more extraordinary by the fact that my boy loves it equally as much. It might all fall pretty flat if I didn't have a little sponge following behind, soaking it in. (Though, in full disclosure, my almost five-year-old son is still deeply mired in Harry Potter and is in fact in the room next to this one listening to Book Three on audio and as he "sorted" himself into Ravenclaw, he just came in with tears in his eyes that the Ravenclaw Quidditch team only has Clean Sweep Seven brooms instead of the more fashionable Firebolt and Nimbus models. Sigh.) Anywho, thanks so much for visiting and reading and commenting and being equally as enthused about the books. But I digress... as usual. Soooo, The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, The Tale of Custard the Dragon, The Kitten Playing with the Fallen Leaves... they are all here, and more. Oh, how we love a good rhyme in this house. Or not.

Snowy Morning

Wake
gently this morning
to a different day.
Listen.
There is no bray
of buses,
no brake growls,
no siren howls and
no horns
blow.
There is only
the silence
of a city
hushed
by snow.

- Lilian MooreAnd of course, Joan's drawings are dear and sweet as always. Some of these children even have mouths and smiles! Darling, darling, darling.

Also by:
The Golden Treasury of Children's Literature
Love is a Special Way of Feeling
Nibble Nibble Mousekin
The Cowboy's Christmas