Reading Poetry

I love reading and writing poetry. My poems, though, almost always rhyme, and I’m not very good at free verse yet. My children enjoy poetry too, and one of the best ways I’ve found to encourage them is by reading poetry together. And age-appropriate poems are so easy to find! There are lots of picture books that are actually poems coupled with illustrations to tell a story, and there’s a rhythm to Dr. Seuss that no-one can miss. You’ll also find plenty of poetry collections for kids on your library shelves. Below are some to look for:

Rhyming Picture Books

Anything by Dr. Seuss, including The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, To Think That I Saw it On Mulberry Street, and Horton Hears a Who.

ABC Safari by Karen Lee

Big Red Barn and Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by By Bill Martin, Jr.

Dinosaurs Roar by Paul and Henrietta Stickland

Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers and Marla Fraze

How Big is a Pig by Clare Beaton

Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

My Granny Went to Market by Stella Blackstone

My Truck is Stuck! By Kevin Lewis

One Odd Day and My Even Day by Doris Fisher and Dani Sneed

Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae

Surfer Chick and Me With You by Kristy Dempsey

Who Ate All the Cookie Dough? by Karen Beaumont

Poetry Collections

A Child’s Garden Book of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

Here’s A Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry by Jane Yolen, Andrew Fusek Peters and Polly Dunbar

My Very First Mother Goose by Iona Opie

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry: 200 Poems with Photographs That Squeak, Soar, and Roar! by J. Patrick Lewis

Poems to Learn by Heart by Caroline Kennedy and Jon J. Muth

Shel Silverstein collections: A Light in the Attic, Everything On it, Falling Up, and Where the Sidewalk Ends

What rhyming or poetry books have you and your child read together?

Photo by Dreilinger