The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America (Oxford Books of Verse) [Hardcover]

Donald Hall (Editor)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up | Series: Oxford Books of Verse

In the tradition of Iona and Peter Opie's Oxford Book of Children's Verse comes this anthology by the award-winning poet and children's book author Donald Hall. Bringing together "poems written for children and also poems written for anybody which children have enjoyed," the book includes anonymous works, ballads, and recitation pieces, beginning with the Calvinist verses of the seventeenth century.
Hall has collected poems from Sunday School magazines, Christmas annuals for children, and children's periodicals such as St. Nicholas and Youth's Companion. Many marvelous writers, some no longer remembered, wrote almost every month for these nineteenth and twentieth century publications. In addition to the expected names of Longfellow and Whittier, we find Sarah Josepha Hale ("Mary Had a Little Lamb"), Mary Mapes Dodge (creator of Hans Brinker), and Palmer Cox (with his marvelous Brownies). Twentieth century authors abound: Ogden Nash, T.S. Eliot, John Updike, Theodore Roethke, to name just a few. The book concludes with the fabulous nonsense of present-day writers like Shel Silverstein and Nancy Willard.

About the Editor:

Donald Hall's many books include The Oxford Book of American Literary Anecdotes, Kicking the Leaves, and Ox-Cart Man, which won the Caldecott Medal for children's literature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Donald Hall has put together a long-needed treasure of a book. At a time when most poetry for children sounds as if it were written by a sponge dipped in sugared milk he has brought together the true best of a great and ignored tradtition. I wish every American child could grow up with it. I wish I had it as a child."--John Ciardi

"Excellent in every way...it shows us, as no other evidence could, how often and how greatly our society has changed its conception of the child's mind and world."--Richard Wilbur

"[Hall's] fascinating anthology will remain valuable, both as a source of the poems we once loved that have vanished from later collections, and as a fascinating and well-researched history of the form."--Alison Lurie, The New York Times Book Review

"Hall's choices make for a fascinating picture of changing literary tastes, as well as providing poetry lovers of all ages with a reference of approximately two hundred fifty poems--some obscure, some well known--to read and recite."--Newsday

"Brings out the kid in any of us, effortlessly making the point that a true source of poetry, and maybe the truest, rests in the child's capacity for savage innocence and eternal wonderment."--David Lehman, The Washington Post Book World

"I'll return to this book again and again, whether or not I have a child on my knee."--The Christian Science Monitor

"Not only a well-selected sampling of individual poets but also a silhouette of a developing literature over four centuries."--Booklist

"Hall has done an exemplary job in assembling from the pages of long defunct children's magazines and antique anthologies this panorama of poems for American Children....Newly discovered gems shine alongside old chestnuts."--Commentary

I heartily recommend this anthology to children of all ages....[It] combines a child's heart with enormous genius. Buy it and read it aloud and reminisce, and be the warmer and younger for it."--The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"An entertaining collection of old and new, this is an anthology to add to the family library, but not to keep on the shelf. Circulate it among family and friends, and, above all, read it aloud."--The Sunday Boston Globe

About the Author

Donald Hall is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (April 25, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195035399
• ISBN-13: 978-0195035391
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #651,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book of quality poems for schoolage children, May 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America (Oxford Books of Verse) (Hardcover)

This book is for anyone -- parents, educators, or students -- looking for an excellent anthology of high quality poetry for older schoolage children. Several steps beyond the nursery rhyme, it contains many works by famous poets which are readily accessible to chldren in elementary and middle school. This is one you will keep coming back to again and again!! (As a teacher, I find in preferrable to most of the textbook anthologies available in classrooms.)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book, June 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America (Oxford Books of Verse) (Hardcover)

As parents of a three-year-old, some of our happiest recent moments have been reading to him from this wonderful collection of poems, which range from Colonial works to Emily Dickenson to Richard Wilbur. Sure, much of it is beyond him now, but he likes the rhythm and rhymes he hears--and he even knows to request "Casey at the Bat." We're pretty sure we're going to get a lot of enjoyable use out of this book in years to come.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic, March 25, 2007

By 

Gillian F. Earle (Long Branch, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America (Oxford Books of Verse) (Hardcover)

I remember this book from when I was young. Now I share it with my children, and always buy it for baby gifts. A must to any childs library.