Read Me

Like the bottle labelled DRINK ME in Alice in Wonderland, the cover of Macmillan's anthology of poems for children produced for The National Year of Reading, (1999), features the words READ ME attractively inscribed in red writing on a brown tie-on label. And just like in Lewis Carroll's Wonderland, the consumers of this book are in for a surprise. This is no ordinary poetry anthology for children. Certainly, the poems are ordered in relation to the seasons, and the school year, but they are of very different kinds, written by quite different kinds of poets and for widely different readers.

The quality of the writing is very variable too; the 'classic' poems generally being of a much higher literary quality than more contemporary verse. Spike Milligan and Dr Seuss sit next to Robert Browning, Yeats and Shakespeare. But then accessibility and enjoyment seem to have been the keywords in choosing the modern poems.

A challenging concept and a rag-bag of poems containing some real jewels. (Ages 8 to 13) --Tamsin Palmer

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Great book - Rated
Great way to introduce young, and old, to poetry. As a teacher I use this book often with my classes to start the day.

Great read, go on treat yourself.

Praise for a varied and well-chosen collection - Rated
The idea of a poem a day is a good one for introducing poetry to a child, since it provides an easily digestible segment, and you can dip in and out of the book from time to time. Many children's collections suffer from being to heartily amusing or condescending, but this book acheives a nice balance between the silly and the serious. A great deal of thought has obviously gone into choosing a mood for each day, without too many seasonal cliches. I was also pleased to find a number of classical favourites along with selections obviously written for children.