Collected Poems for Children

by Ted Hughes

Book Overview

This collection brings together the more than 250 children's poems Ted Hughes wrote throughout his career. They are arranged by volume, beginning with those published for younger readers and progressing to more complex and sophisticated poems that he felt were written within hearing of children. Throughout, Hughes reveals his instinctive grasp of a child's insatiable wonderment and sense of humor as well as his own instinctive and illuminating perspective...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374314292
• ISBN13: 9780374314293
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 259 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"
• Age Range: 7 to 11 years
• Grade Range: Grades 2 to 6

Customer Reviews

A must-have collection

Once in awhile a book comes along that's difficult for me to review. Ted Hughes' "Collected Poems for Children," illustrated by Raymond Briggs, is one such book. I just want to tell you: "This book is great. You must buy it." But an imperative does not a review make, so I'll elaborate. Ted Hughes' "Collected Poems for Children" is a book every home, library, and school should own. Containing over 250 poems Hughes wrote over his lifetime, it begins with poems written for the very young and concludes with those written for teens. The poems are presented as Hughes intended, in books--beginning with "The Mermaid's Purse" and concluding with "Season Songs." The natural world--animals, plants, the moon, weather--is Hughes' most frequent subject and his verse is direct and classically composed. Take for example, this selection from one of my favorite poems from "The Cat and the Cuckoo" (the second book in the collection, aimed at children about eight years old): "The Cat" You need your Cat. When you slump down All tired and flat With too much town With too many lifts Too many floors Too many neon-lit Corridors .... Then stroke the Cat That warms your knee You'll find her purr Is a battery For into your hands Will flow the powers Of the beasts who ignore These ways of ours And you'll be refreshed Through the Cat on your lap With a Leopard's yawn And a Tiger's nap. These short, simple lines bring an entire world to a child--a world they know well. A world of corridors, and elevators, and town. Any school child will agree that a cat is the perfect respite after such a day. For older children, Hughes' lines are longer and the verse more complex. Take the following example from "Spring Nature Notes" ("Season Songs," the final book in the collection): The sun lies mild and still on the yard stones. The clue is a solitary daffodil--the first. And the whole air struggling in soft excitements Like a woman hurrying into her silks. Birds everywhere zipping and unzipping Changing their minds, in soft excitements, Arming their wings and trying their voices. The trees still spindle bare. Beyond them, from the warmed blue hills An exhilaration swirls upward, like a huge fish. As under a waterfall, in the bustling pool. Over the whole land Spring thunders down in brilliant silence. Here you can already talk of more complex poetic matters with an older child. How is this poem structured? What of all the movement in this poem? What does it mean to "thunder down in brilliant silence"? How do birds zip and unzip? Raymond Briggs' realistic pencil illustrations perfectly complement Hughes' poems. Scattered liberally throughout the volume (on every page in the first three books aimed at younger children), Briggs brings the poems to life with animals, everyday objects, and even humorous interpretations of some of the poems. Ted Hughes' "Collected Poems for Children" is a perfect gift for children of any age. Just make su