From Cover to Cover by Kathleen T. Horning Page B

as though we are right in the midst of a snow flurry. Her playful use of words—“laughs away from me,” “whitely,” and “otherwhere”—is original and inventive and yet can be immediately understood. On a metaphorical level, Brooks writes about snow as if it were a person, another child perhaps, teasing and enticing Cynthia as a playmate might do.
    THE IDEAS OF POETRY
    Like “Cynthia in the Snow,” good children’s poetry gives fresh vision to common things and experiences. It can appeal to the intellect as well as the emotions, as it extends and enriches meaning in everyday life. In looking at children’s poetry on an intellectual level, we need to keep in mind the typical interests and concerns of childhood: relationships with friends and family, the outdoors, daily routines, play, animals, andordinary everyday things such as safety pins or socks—these are pieces of the child’s world. We can find them all in good poetry for children.
    When we evaluate children’s poetry, we need to consider the quality of the poetry itself by thinking about how it sounds, what it says, and how it says it. Read poetry aloud. A good poem sounds natural, even if it rhymes. Look at the words that have been used to compose the poem. Do they seem unchangeable? What kinds of specific and implied comparisons has the poet made? How has imagery been used? Think about the idea presented in the poem. Does it show a fresh view of something with which a child is likely to be familiar? Does it appeal to the mind through the senses? Does it leave a lingering image in the mind of the reader?
    In addition to thinking about the quality of the poetry itself, we also need to consider the manner in which it is presented in a book. Poetry published for children exists in great quantity and variety. We find books that appeal to all ages from infancy up through the teen years. There are anthologies of classic poems, some of which were written specifically for children and some of which were written for adults but can be enjoyed by children. There are collections of poems by individual poets. There are single poems that are illustrated and published as individual picture books, as well as picture-book texts written in verse. And there are collections of songs published in anthologies, in addition to single songs published in picture-book editions. There are novels written in verse. Because poetry, rhymes, and verse appeal to a broad range of ages, we need to think in terms of audience when we evaluate individual volumes of poetry. Let’s take a look at some of these categories, beginning with rhymes for the very youngest.
    NURSERY RHYMES
    Nursery rhymes recited to children and handed down through generations have come to be associated with the appropriately fanciful nameMother Goose. In their authoritative work on the subject, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes , folklore scholars Peter and Iona Opie remark that while many scholarly studies have attempted to analyze the symbolic and historical nature of the rhymes, these interpretations are largely speculative. The rhymes themselves have survived not because of a great underlying meaning—indeed, many of them make little sense at all—but because of their sound: “[T]hese trivial verses have endured where newer and more ambitious compositions have become dated and forgotten. They have endured often for nine or ten generations, sometimes for considerably more, and scarcely altered in their journey.”
    While surviving as oral literature for generations, the rhymes began to be published in books especially created for children in the early eighteenth century. They are among the earliest children’s books published in both England and the United States. For the most part the rhymes they contain are familiar to English-speaking children today: “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” “Little Jack Horner,” and “This Little Pig Went to Market” among them.
    The rhymes themselves don’t change, but