Poetry Speaks to Children
I was recently contacted by Sourcebooks, Inc. and asked to review a copy of The New York Times bestselling book, Poetry Speaks to Children. It's a beautiful hard cover book that contains 95 poems from various poets and is accompanied by a supplemental CD of 34 of the poets reading 50 different poems from the book.
One of the things that really struck me about the book was the eclectic nature of the contents. It really is a book for all ages. It includes silly short poems like, Mrs. Mitchell's Underwear by Dennis Lee next to deep and morally valuable poems like, Okay, Brown Girl, Okay by James Berry (which is one of the selections on the CD). Just skim through the table of contents and you'll see entries from some of the classic poets and story tellers such as Robert Frost, Edgar Allan Poe, and Lewis Carroll as well as contemporary poets you may be reading for the first time.
Each poem is juxtaposed on the page with a gorgeous illustration by one of three women artists. All the illustrations appear to be done in a traditional medium such as watercolor, pen and ink, or pencil and adds not only to the richness of the subject matter of each poem, but to the overall aesthetics of the book as you turn each page.
The CD is a unique entity in itself. It was really interesting to listen to the poets reading their own poetry. To hear the intonations and pauses they would make and how that contrasted with the way I read the poem offered a whole new life to the work. You could listen to the CD on it's own or while you were looking through the book—as each track on the CD is listed on the page it accompanies in the book. Not only could it function as an audio book of sorts, but it could also function as a way to help your child learn to read (hearing the texts and seeing the words on the written page).
The book has an age group of 4 and over on the back cover, however, I think you could start much younger than that with many of the entries. As a matter of fact, we've already begun reading it out loud to our child who is only 26 weeks in utero! I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to enrich their children's lives as well as their own. Beautiful, heartfelt, and ageless.
For more information, check out these links:
Poetry Speaks to Children at Amazon.com
Poetry Speaks to Children at Sourcebooks.com
One of the things that really struck me about the book was the eclectic nature of the contents. It really is a book for all ages. It includes silly short poems like, Mrs. Mitchell's Underwear by Dennis Lee next to deep and morally valuable poems like, Okay, Brown Girl, Okay by James Berry (which is one of the selections on the CD). Just skim through the table of contents and you'll see entries from some of the classic poets and story tellers such as Robert Frost, Edgar Allan Poe, and Lewis Carroll as well as contemporary poets you may be reading for the first time.
Each poem is juxtaposed on the page with a gorgeous illustration by one of three women artists. All the illustrations appear to be done in a traditional medium such as watercolor, pen and ink, or pencil and adds not only to the richness of the subject matter of each poem, but to the overall aesthetics of the book as you turn each page.
The CD is a unique entity in itself. It was really interesting to listen to the poets reading their own poetry. To hear the intonations and pauses they would make and how that contrasted with the way I read the poem offered a whole new life to the work. You could listen to the CD on it's own or while you were looking through the book—as each track on the CD is listed on the page it accompanies in the book. Not only could it function as an audio book of sorts, but it could also function as a way to help your child learn to read (hearing the texts and seeing the words on the written page).
The book has an age group of 4 and over on the back cover, however, I think you could start much younger than that with many of the entries. As a matter of fact, we've already begun reading it out loud to our child who is only 26 weeks in utero! I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to enrich their children's lives as well as their own. Beautiful, heartfelt, and ageless.
For more information, check out these links:
Poetry Speaks to Children at Amazon.com
Poetry Speaks to Children at Sourcebooks.com
posted by Holly {ArtistMotherTeacher} at 5:34 PM
5 Comments:
I think this is great. I think introducing reading in any form to children, no matter how young, can only be a good thing.
Calem loves his books and I think he has a few that are considered above his age level.
Just thought I would let you know your soon will have a Girl friend at the end of April. Yep that's right it's a girl and they changed my due date to April 26th. Talk to you soon. Check out the picks on my website.
Oh wow! I hope that'll be available in Dutch translation someday. Looks great.
We read to Pan and Tink in utero - Both of them love to read.
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