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Review by Jill Chesler
Here's a Little Poem: a Very First Book of Poetry
Collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusker Peters, illustrations by Polly Dunbar
Here's a Little Poem provides an excellent transition from finger plays and familiar Mother Goose rhymes to the
wider world of poetry. The sixty poems in this oversized anthology are divided into four sections: Me, Myself, and I;
Who Lives in My House?; I Go Outside; and Time For Bed. Yolen and Peters have chosen the poems carefully so that the
subject matter and experiences are familiar to very young readers and listeners. The collection includes poems by
A.A.Milne, Margaret Wise Brown, Jack Prelutsky, Langston Hughes, and 45 other poets, all of them delightfully and
thoughtfully illustrated by Polly Dunbar. Most of the poems are whimsical, alliterative, and humorous, and all of
them are appropriate for preschoolers, kindergarteners, and older children who appreciate the language of poetry. Here
are some of the poems included in the book that represent the quality and scope of the collection:
Here's a Little Foot
by Wendy Cope
Here's a little foot.
What shall we do with it?
Lift it up
And into a shoe with it.
Mud
by Flanders and Swann
Mud, mud, glorious mud,
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow
In glorious
Mud!
Dream Maker
by Jane Yolen
The shining silver moon
Is a coin hung in the sky
To pay the old Dream Maker
Whenever he goes by.
Here's a Little Poem is an excellent first anthology and a good place to start a collection of poetry for children.
Here's a Little Poem: a Very First Book of Poetry, collected by Jane Yolen and
Andrew Fusker Peters, illustrations by Polly Dunbar. Candlewick, 2007. ISBN: 0-7636-3141-8.
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