Perfect poetry for little people

Special little people need special gifts. I picked three lovely books of verse as gifts for the little people in my life—my grands—this year.

Littlest one is getting The Moon Shines Down by Margaret Wise Brown. I found it at my local Chapters in a sturdy but affordable board book format.

This lovely volume has poems that muse about how the same moon shines on many different places. In gentle verse it introduces little ones to a variety of cultures and settings ending with a prayer of blessing for each one. I can’t wait to read it to little M!

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Middle grand is getting Tadeo Turtle—an extra special book to me because I know author/illustrator Janis Cox.

Through easy-to-read rhymes we discover Tadeo is unhappy with his shell. Cox’s luminous watercolour illustrations add so much to this story about learning to accept the way God made us. Activity and craft suggestions at the end of the book give it added value.

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For oldest grand I’ve chosen Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman. I was first introduced to Sidman and Dark Emperor via Poetry Friday (I forget by whom but whoever you are, I thank you!). I was charmed by the samples of Sidman’s verse I read that day and so pleased with my choice when I finally held the book in my hand, feasted my eyes on the just-a-wee-bit-spooky linocuts by Rick Allen, and read the entire twelve-poem offering.

What I especially like in this book is its fact component. On the page opposite each poem Sidman has written a prose piece about the creature character of her poem, giving us fascinating facts about its physical makeup, habits, and why it is a night creature. Dark Emperor will be the perfect gift to reassure a sometimes fearful-of-the-dark youngster that the night is not only friendly, but interesting.