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Find out moreChildren love poetry. Perfect for sharing at bedtime, fun time and for children to read alone. Always inspirational; collections of poetry will take the reader into another world.
Age 9+. Winner of the CLPE Poetry Award 2011 , which honours excellence in poetry written for children. Reviewed and selected by our poetry expert, Liam Parkin: Already an established poet and winner of the T. S. Eliot prize, Philip Gross has produced Off Road to Everywhere, a collection full of poetry that appeals to both adults and children. His language and diction is captivating, and the rhythmic measure of many of the poems is perfect for a younger generation getting into poetry. Throughout the collection, Gross mixes fantasy with reality and elevates the familiar with images like the ‘Folded...wings of old-gold birds, / Chinese screens’ (Shadow Party); and the exquisite illustrations complimenting the poems pick out more than the words on the page. Gross provide a wealth of knowledge on how to write poetry itself, and many of the techniques he uses can be used for workshops amongst adults and children. In an elegant and accessible collection, Gross introduces children to a world of thinking, writing and reading like a poet. The CLPE Poetry Award 2011 shortlist: Everybody was a Baby Once Cuckoo Rock If You could See Laughter Off Road to Everywhere A Million Brilliant Poems: Part One
These classic cat poems which sum up all the different kinds of cats there can be are given a delightful new look by bestselling Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler. Scheffler’s cats are cuddly creatures with expressive eyes through which the cats convey the hilarity and nonsense of T S Eliot’s verses.
Age 5+. These classic cat poems which sum up all the different kinds of cats there can be are given a delightful new look by bestselling Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler. Scheffler’s cats are cuddly creatures with expressive eyes through which the cats convey the hilarity and nonsense of T S Eliot’s verses.
These classic cat poems which sum up all the different kinds of cats there can be are given a delightful new look by bestselling Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler. Scheffler’s cats are cuddly creatures with expressive eyes through which the cats convey the hilarity and nonsense of T S Eliot’s verses.
The world-famous rhymes starring cats such as Macavity the Mystery Cat and Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat are beautifully presented in this edition with illustrations by Axel Scheffler best-known for his pictures of the Gruffalo. Perfect for reading out loud, the poems about the practical cats are both humorous and affectionate, catching the quirky and familiar foibles of all cats. ~ Julia Eccleshare
Sport – winning, losing, taking part – is celebrated in this typically skilful collection from two of our most popular poets for young people. There are funny poems, story poems, contemplative ones to make you see things clearer or differently, and the poets even have a contest themselves, each one describing archery (too quiet for Moses, pure gold for Stevens). In a poem in four parts jointly written and placed strategically throughout the book they wittily compare the process of writing poetry itself to a marathon, from the early stages when confidence is high, to the last few miles when poems can ‘get puffed… sit down at the side of the page’. These are poems to be enjoyed and remembered long after the final medal has been awarded in Rio. ~ Andrea Reece
Shortlisted for the UKLA Book Awards 2020 | Via simple but elegant illustrations, and a gentle sometimes playful rhyming text, this picture book passes on all sorts of information about water and its importance, while never losing the sense of the beauty of this essential element. Words and illustrations take us back in time to the beginning of life on Earth, up hills and deep below the surface to explain that “clouds, rain, river, sea, water cycles endlessly”. Carefully placed splashes of colour underscore pages of different blues, the tinkling rhythm of the text bringing a sense of calm. It all concludes with five fascinating facts about the “world wide wet” and this is a book to savour on lots of different levels.
Poetry is possibly the best way to convey the wonder of space and our own place in it, and James Carter’s text for this picture book is both precise and inspiring: ‘A sea of stars at last were born/gradually they fired and formed/out of clouds of dust and gas/each a mighty sparky mass’. The artwork by Mar Hernandez is equally beautiful, illustrating the development of life from the big bang to the world as we know it. The last image is of a jumping child – ‘You’re a Star’ – and there’s a page of science facts to end, taking us five billion years into the future. ~ Andrea Reece
From the joys of the seaside to the miseries of the sickbed, this exuberant volume captures to perfection the world of childhood. It is a beautiful gift edition of the classic picture book, with a new introduction by Shirley Hughes.
UKLA Longlist Book Awards - 2019 | Shortlisted for the Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award 2018 | This second solo collection from Joseph Coelho, Overheard in a Tower Block, explores further some of the themes from Werewolf Club Rules (which won the CLiPPA in 2015). More suited to an older reader than that first collection, this is an extraordinarily powerful and moving book. Each poem offers us glimpses into the life of the main character as he grows, over the course of the collection, from young boy through adolescence to adulthood. The ingenious threading of fantasy, story, myth and magic throughout the poems only illuminates further the challenges and hardships of this young man’s life, but ultimately concludes in moments of optimism, joy and possibility.
Age 7+. A wonderful treasury of more than 250 poems, old and new from old favourites by Rudyard Kipling and Hilaire Belloc to new poems by some of the best contemporary poets for children such as Michael Rosen and Carol Anne Duffy. Beautiful illustrations complement the poems making a collection to savour.
The poems that make up this collection were first published in 1913 but it was not until 1946 that it was published, as it is in this new edition, with Edward Ardizzone’s illustrations. Though de la Mare’s poems describe a variety of subjects, there’s a unity to the collection that makes it read almost like a song-cycle. Ardizzone’s drawings enhance that, making Peacock Pie, in the view of children’s literature expert Brian Alderson, ‘one of the most satisfying children’s books of the twentieth century’. Certainly the poems deserve to be lived with whole, and the drawings – in choice of subject and viewpoint, response to character and setting – are simply perfect. There should be a place for this on every child’s bookshelf. ~ Andrea Reece
