The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America (Oxford Books of Verse) - Softcover

"[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

"Brings out the kid in any of us."―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

"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

"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

"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 tradition. I wish every American child could grow up with it. I wish I had it as a child."―John Ciardi

Compiled by the award-winning poet and author of children's books, Donald Hall, this delightful anthology follows in the tradition of Iona and Peter Opie's classic Oxford Book of Children's Verse. Hall brings together poems written specifically for children and also those written for anyone and enjoyed by children and adults alike. He presents over two hundred fifty poems written by over one hundred different American poets―including anonymous works, ballads, and recitation pieces―that range from the Calvinist verses of the seventeenth century to the fabulous nonsense poems of the present.
Drawing on literally thousands of sources―including Sunday School magazines, Christmas annuals for children, and such wonderful children's periodicals as St. Nicholas and Youth's Companion―Hall gives the modern reader a rich sampling of many poems never before anthologized. He includes everyone's favorites, from Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (a.k.a. "The Night Before Christmas") to the classic lines of Longfellow and Whittier. Along with Sarah Josepha Hale's famous poem, "Mary's Lamb," we find poetry by Emily Dickinson, Mary Mapes Dodge, Palmer Cox, Sarah Orne Jewett, Laura E. Richards, and Gelett Burgess. He also covers the twentieth-century with verse by T.S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, Ogden Nash, Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel), and Randall Jarrell, just to name a few. Hall concludes with the poetry of present-day writers such as Shel Silverstein and Nancy Willard.
A testament to a captivating tradition in American literature, this anthology will encourage many hours of nostalgic browsing and reading aloud to children.