Read Me: 11/05/09

Read Me is a collection of poems for parents and children to read together over the course of a year. Each poem is assigned a date and the subjects covered are on topic for their date.

The book includes well known poems like Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee" (February 15) and "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae (August 12). It also has a large number of nursery rhymes and hymns such as "Simple Simon" (May 30) and "O Little Town" by Bishop Phillips Brooks (December 25). Mostly though the poems are playful and unusual

Someone better versed in children's poetry will recognize more of the selections than I did. I though enjoyed finding so many surprises tucked away in this 470 page volume

The only disappoint for me was December. Too much of the month is focused on Christmas carols. The book comes to a ho-hum close. I understand that Christmas (especially in a British book) would be the main focus for December but I would have preferred to see the same level of unusual or novelty poems as the other eleven months have

Finally, one of the poems is mislabeled which makes me wonder about the rest of the attributed poems. November 21's poem is listed as "Daisy" and the author is listed as anonymous. The poem, best known as the song title "Bicycle Built for Two" is actually called "Daisy Bell" and was written by Harry Dacre in 1892

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