Christmas Recommendations - Poetry for Children

As December is bounding towards us with tinsel between its teeth I thought I might get into the festive spirit and recommend a few books for Christmas presents. Today's selection is for children, but any sensible adult would also enjoy any of these!

The Day I Fell Down the Toilet was my oldest daughter's favourite poetry book when she was at primary school. Funny, thoughtful, great illustrations - and nearly twenty years after publication, still in print! Published by Lion Books, who have also published two more collections by Steve Turner, Dad You're Not Funny, and The Moon Has Got His Pants On - both equally appealing.

Ted Hughes' poetry for children is just as good as his 'grown-up' stuff. In his Collected Poems for Children there are people and animals (Crow makes an appearance), and a series of Moon Poems which are absolutely stunning.  The illustrations by Raymond Briggs seem completely organic to the text - it's like he's just sat down with each copy and drawn them on specially for each individual reader. This is a beautiful book, which I have just discovered is currently out of print. But I'm still going to feature it. Faber, what are you doing? Get it back in print asap! In the meantime keep a look out for it in charity shops... or find the individual collections by Hughes such as Meet My Folks and Nessie the Mannerless Monster.

Ring of Words features a fabulous selection, chosen by the inimitable Roger McGough. Poets range from Walter de la Mare to Stevie Smith, Wendy Cope to Donald Justice, George Szirtes to Grace Nichols. This is an inspired selection. If some totalitarian regime passed a law that a child should only have access to one poetry anthology, I would say let it be this! Give it to them while they're at primary school and they'll still be reading it when they moving up through secondary.

Update: I have just discovered that this is also no longer in print. Faber, what are you doing - again? However, there are lots available at the moment for mere pence at a certain online book retailer's 'marketplace'...

This one, thank goodness, is still in print. Edited by another Liverpool poet hero of mine, Brian Patten, The Puffin Book of Utterly Brilliant Poetry features a selection of poems from ten different poets, plus an interview with each of them. Poets featured are Spike Milligan, Kit Wright, Michael Rosen, Charles Causley, Roger McGough, Benjamin Zephaniah, Brian Patten, Jackie Kay, John Agard and Alan Ahlberg. Apart from the gender imbalance - which is made rather obvious because of the small number of poets featured - I think this is a great representation of a range of poetry for children. The illustrations are bright and stylish, with a different illustrator for each poet, and here the gender imbalance is the other way, since more than half are female. Great for primary school aged children.

Okay, slight failure on the recommending books that people can actually buy front. Sorry about that.

But there's some brilliant children's poetry out there. One I'm going to give to someone this Christmas (shhh! Don't tell!) is Carol Ann Duffy's 101 Poems for Children: A Laureate's Choice, (Macmillan, 2013) with poems ranging from Emily Dickinson to Alice Oswald and ee cummings. However, before I wrap it I'm going to have to read it myself. I have to test it out, don't I?