Customer Reviews

Classic Poetry: An Illustrated Collection

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Wisely chosen and beautifully illustrated,this book shows how entertaining and exciting poetry can be. It instantly held the attention of my six year old. He wanted to write a thank you note to Lord Byron!

This book is a children's collection of poetry. However, it appears that Michael Rosen has attempted to balance the chipper, happy poems of many children's anthologies with more intense, darker ones. The overall tone is fairly serious, though beautifully so. He combines such sweet verse as Skating by William Wordsworth, with more wistful or even death-filled ones, such as La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats.

The book is written chronologically, from Shakespeare and William Blake to Langston Hughes and Judith Wright. He includes from one to five poems from each of his 40 or so collected poets, with a short, thoughtful biography of each.

The book is strikingly illustrated by Paul Howard, who alters his style and technique for each poem, aptly evoking the feeling and time period of each poem.

I would consider this as a readaloud for children ages 8+; younger children are likely to be disturbed by some of the darker selections.

This book is more newly published in paperback as The Walker Book of Classic Poetry and Poets .

I first checked this book out at the library. I love how it has all of the great poets from the past. It also gives a little bio for each poet. I homeschool so when we study a poet I start with the Classic Poetry book then find other poems by the same poet so they get a pretty good taste of each poet's poetry. It is a big help to me knowing all of the names of the great classic poets and I think it has beautiful illustrations as well.