Beastly Verse

Graphically exquisite and beautifully produced, this book of illustrated animal poems for children is a work of art in and of itself.Large and well-made, this book is made even more surprising by the addition of four gate-fold pages.This is a lot of beautiful book for the money and the selection of poems is superb and stronger than the few collections out there.As Ellen Handler Spitz wrote in a May 9th review of two picture books on Emily Dickinson for the NYTBR: “In the daily lives of most American children today, poetry has gone missing. Almost entirely absent from elementary school curriculums, rarely chosen as bedtime reading by parents, poetry – formerly a joyful accouterment of youth, an inexhaustible gift – seems forgotten. Yet poetry and children belong together.”POETRY AND CHILDREN BELONG TOGETHER.

Poets included in this book, among others: Lewis Carroll, William Blake, Robert Desnos, Hilaire Belloc, William Cowper, Christina Rossetti, and D.H. Lawrence.