poetry books for young children

The Best Poetry Books for Very Young Children

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National Poetry Month! My babies heard a lot of their first poetry when bathing or eating or having diapers changed, and at the time I didn’t think of it as poetry. I recited nursery rhymes, sang “Twinkle, twinkle little star,” and rocked babies in the night while chanting bits of poems I once had memorized –

Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night

or perhaps more likely,

T’was brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe

At the dinner table with small children, who among us has not murmured to the ceiling,

The Goops they lick their fingers, And the Goops they lick their knives?

For those of you who look might askance at the idea of poetry for babies and toddlers, who might question a two or three-year old’s ability to understand the words, or the pictures created behind the words, or even the emotions evoked by the words – try to let those rational thoughts go.

While tiny people may not have the language and experience yet to understand poetry in the way that an adult might, they are certainly at an age to soak up sound and rhythm as babies – didn’t they live for nine months to the sound of a heartbeat in utero?   The older they get, the more they hear and understand, the more attuned they will be to lyrical language. Let’s start with the simplest poems for very young children.

Poetry Books for Very Young Children

little poems for tiny ears poetry book for children

Little Poems for Tiny Ears, by Lin Oliver and illustrated by Tomie dePaola, evoke the things that the youngest children relate to: looking in the mirror, riding in the stroller, noses and toeses, belly buttons, different sounds, animal friends, tossing food from the high chair. The illustrations are round and simple, like babies themselves, and help to tell the stories visually.

poems to read to the very young book of poems

My favorite book of poems for my children was Poems to Read to the Very Young, selected by Josette Frank, illustrated by Eloise Wilkin. Wilkin illustrated many of the Golden Books with realistic children and friendly scenes for children, many that I recognize as staples of my childhood. This is a small but mighty collection of poems by including works by Langston Hughes, Aileen Fisher, A. B. Shiffrin, Christina Rossetti, Sarah Coleridge, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kate Greenaway, and Dorothy Aldis.

haiku baby poetry book for children

Haiku Baby by Betsy E. Snyder is a colorful board book with tabs for each new page, illustrating a nature element – rain, leaf, flower, etc., in the traditional Japanese five-seven-five structure. Haiku Night shows the nighttime, with pictures that capture the haiku moment. My favorite:

One tiny star

Winking at you in the night

Time to make a wish

I like myself! children's book

I Like Myself! by Karen Beaumont, illustrated by David Cafrow, is a delightful celebration of self in rhyme, silly and beautifully out of bounds. Remember Mr. Rogers singing, “It’s You I Like”? This happy and irrepressible story tells it in living color.

the random house book of poetry for children poetry book for children

A very popular anthology with a wide range of poems is The Random House Book of Poetry for Children, 572 Poems for Today’s Child, selected by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Arnold Lobel. Prelutsky also curated Read Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young, this time illustrated by Marc Brown. This one looks to the younger crowd, with rhymes and topics closer to home.

a child's book of poems poetry book for children

A Child’s Book of Poems illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa is another of my favorites. She has 200 poems with pictures drawn in her wonderful whimsical style, both black and white and color. She was among the very first authors in the United States to present multicultural children in all her books.

adorable scoundrels childrens book of poems

Finally, for parents and grandparents of toddlers, Adorable Scoundrels: A Treasury of Toddler Poems by Howard Eisenburg, illustrated by Susan Robinson, can brighten your day. Poems can be simple and humorous:

The grandparent’s advantage
As some of you may know
Is when a tantrum starts
You can just get up and go.

There are so many wonderful poetry books! I have listed a very few here, and I look forward to exploring more. I have found my books of poems a real comfort this past few years. When I don’t want to read something – the news, or that book someone says you must read, or history, or something deep, controversial, difficult, easy, uncomfortable, serious, light, trivial, complicated, boring, happy – I can always leaf through the pages of an anthology of poetry and find a poem that speaks to me at the moment. 

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