pickA book of poems for children? Perhaps, if written by Uncle Edgar Allen Poe for niece and nephew Wednesday and Pugsley Addams 💀
While not overtly horrific, the overall atmosphere is of melancholy, loss, death, night and febrile passion.
The opening poem, The Horseman, initially reads as a bit of nonsense nursery rhyme, but then, surely, the pale rider on his ivory horse coming over the moonlit hill can be none other than Death stalking the ⬇️
I picked this up in Keswick Oxfam last week: a 1942 illustrated edition of a Walter de la Mare collection of poems for children. It's in reasonable shape, except that Oxfam vandalised it with non-removable stickers on the rear of the dust jacket! I mean, why would you? 🤷♂️ Anyway, de la Mare is one of those authors I've always known of, but never read other than the odd short story here and there, so worth reading a book just to have done so.
pickElise Paschen's 'Poetry Speaks to Children' is a comprehensive anthology that introduces children to a diverse range of poets and styles. Accompanied by an audio CD featuring poets reading their own works, this book offers a multisensory experience, making it an invaluable tool for exploring the beauty and diversity of poetic expression.
