This anthology of poetry links together some of Michael Morpurgo's core beliefs for his tenure as Children's Laureate - the importance of reading for pleasure, with specific reference to a first-hand and powerful experience of the countryside and the natural world. He has chosen poems that display a link between a physical knowledge of the countryside and of nature e.g. 'Digging' by Seamus Heaney and 'The Thought Fox' by Ted Hughes. There are poems ancient and modern, from Virgil to John Clare, Andrew Marvell to Ted Hughes. And a wide selection of poems from nursery rhymes and anonymous poems to new writing from poets such as Carol Ann Duffy, Michael Longley and Alice Oswald. This is an anthology for all readers, which, without reducing itself to the lowest common denominator, could be enjoyed by everyone. Some poems could be read and enjoyed at a primary school level, and there will be others that can be grown into.

 

There are 128 pages in this book. This book was published 2005 by Egmont UK Ltd .

QUENTIN BLAKE is Britain's leading illustrator, and was chosen as the first Children's Laureate. Michael Morpurgo has brought together poems by writers as diverse as Spike Milligan and Stevie Smith, John Lennon and Jo Shapcott.