The Oxford Treasury of Children's Poems

Despite its staid title, this 175-page volume of poems is filled with playful, toe-tapping rhymes. Light verse and narrative poems dance side by side with puns and couplets from writers as diverse as John Masefield and Shel Silverstein. The poems are informally groupeda page or two of poems about animals, food, weatherbut without dictinct divisions in the format. The illustrations, by over 30 different artists, include both black - and - white cartoons and full-color paintings, a hodgepodge of illustrated pages that seem snipped from a hundred school books and bound together as one volume. Like the poems, the drawings vary in style and effectiveness, but overall, the book will find favor with those who enjoy jaunty variety. All ages. (Oct.)