Poetry Speaks to Children

"Could it be possible…that the next HOT THING for children is NOT battery powered, viewed on a screen, and has nothing to do with sex, violence, and profanity?"

Kids Discovering Poetry!

Too good to be true? Poetry Speaks to Children is catching on at schools, kids' events, & families' living rooms, and it's setting the "Intelligent Trend" for kids, the way Baby Einstein did for infants!

From the moment the shiny new book arrived at my doorstep, I was excited to see what this incredible creation had in store for my son and for me. From the moment I cracked open the spine, I realized it delivers more than I had hoped it would.

Poetry Speaks to Children is a collection of poems and is accompanied by an audio CD containing many poems from the book, with most being read by the author. Even the famed Robert Frost's voice makes an appearance to read his well known "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Each poem of the book with a matching track on the CD is marked with the track number, making listening to your favorites quite easy.

The first thing I noticed about the book was the amazing illustrations by Judy Love, Wendy Rasmussen, and Paula Zinngrabe Wendland. These names may not mean much to most readers, but after viewing the images of imagination coming to life in full color on the pages of this book, it may give you pause enough to file these illustrators' names to memory. Each illustration captures the feel and wonderment of the poems bound in Poetry Speaks to Children.

The collection of poems, 95 in all, captures the diversity of humanity, cultures, and inner thoughts and feelings. The poetry isn't just poetry; it is literature in its purest form. Poems from greats like Langston Hughes, Lewis Carroll, and Rudyard Kipling share space with historic playwrights such as William Shakespeare and epic novelists like J. R. R. Tolkien. The best part of this collection is that children can enjoy a rich education of literature, learning about the beauty of poetry and the written word while having fun!

The recordings on the audio CD add to the timelessness of poetry. Some of the poems were recorded for the first time while creating the CD, thus resulting in crisp and beautiful poetic rhythms spoken by the author. Other tracks from the CD are from much older recordings, such as the Robert Frost reading. The varied sounds of the CD add to the feel of old and new merging together to make a classic for the younger generation.

Although my son, a mere 2 years old, can't read the words, he can enjoy the imaginative illustrations and the music of poetry when listening to the CD. It also allows parent and child to bond in a way a DVD or audio CD alone cannot.

Poetry Speaks to Children is the best choice for a new addition to any avid reader's collection of poetry. Better still, it is the perfect choice for introducing the beauty of poetry and the spoken word to anyone, of any culture, young and old. Within the pages of the shiny, wonderful book, poetry speaks to everyone in the family.

Copyright (C) 2005, Rachael Towle.

About the Author: Rachael Towle is the owner of several parenting and work-at-home mom websites. She is also administrator of a large Parenting Message Board. You can read more about her sites at Towle Creations, http://www.TowleCreations.com.

This article (text only), written by Rachael Towle, may be reproduced without further permission as long as the author information, active links, and bylines are included in the reproduction.

The Editor:
Elise Paschen is the author of Infidelities, winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize and Houses: Coasts, and her poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. A graduate of Harvard University, she holds M.Phil and D. Phil. degrees in twentieth-century literature from Oxford University. Former executive director of the Poetry Society of America (1988-2001) and co-founder of Poetry in Motion, a nationwide program that places poetry in subways and buses, and she is the coeditor of Poetry Speaks, Poetry in Motion, and Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast. Dr. Paschen teaches in the Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and she lives in Chicago with her husband and two children.

The Advisory Editors:
Billy Collins is the author of many volumes of poetry including The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, and Picnic, Lightning. His poems have appeared regularly in The Best American Poetry. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College (City University of New York). He served as United States Poet Laureate (2001-03) and is currently the poet laureate of New York State.

A poet, lecturer and educator Nikki Giovanni has written more than two dozen books, including Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Racism 101, Blues for All the Changes, and Love Poems. The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, a spoken-word CD, was a finalist for a Grammy Award in 2003. She is the three-time winner of the NAACP Image Award for Literature; she has also received the Langston Hughes Award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters and the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award. She has been voted Woman of the Year by Essence, Mademoiselle, and Ladies' Home Journal. She is a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, where she teaches writing and literature.

X. J. Kennedy is the author of Nude Descending a Staircase (winner of the Lamont Award of the Academy of American Poets) and The Lords of Misrule, which won the Poets' Prize, and other poetry books as well as numerous works for children. With his wife, Dorothy, he edited Knock at a Star: A Child's Introduction to Poetry. Among his many awards is the National Council of Teachers of English Year 2000 Award for Excellence in Children's Poetry. Formerly the poetry editor of The Paris Review, Kennedy has taught at the University of Michigan, the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina, Wellesley College, the University of California-Irvine, the University of Leeds and Tufts. Mr. Kennedy lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, with his wife.