Contents

A Smile	Jez Alborough
Yes	Adrian Mitchell
The Laughter Forecast	Sue Cowling
from Pippa Passes	Robert Browning
The Feeling of Having a Good Day	Joanne Limburg
To See a World	William Blake
Hope on a Rope	Brian Bilston
The Teacher’s Gift	Steve Turner
High Achievers	Kate O’Neil
Picking Teams	Allan Ahlberg
Best Friends	Adrian Henri
Oath of Friendship	Anon. (China)
May You Always	Paul Cookson
Squeezes	Brian Patten
Don’t	Barrie Wade
Mother to Son	Langston Hughes
Two People	Eve Merriam
You Have a Body	George Szirtes
Three Good Things	Jan Dean
The Cupboard	Walter de la Mare
BOY GIRL	Anon.
Isn’t My Name Magical?	James Berry
Keeping Wicket	Valerie Bloom
My Sister	Margaret Mahy
Middle Child	Lindsay MacRae
Siblings	Joseph Coelho
A Blessing	James Wright
Paintings that Move	Stewart Henderson
Heroes	Benjamin Zephaniah
Cats	Eleanor Farjeon
Cat	Vernon Scannell
Charlotte’s Dog	Kit Wright
Tell It to the Dog	Joshua Seigal
A Meerkat Lullaby	Roger McGough
Weird Wildlife	Nick Toczek
Mad Gardener’s Song	Lewis Carroll
The Blind Men and the Elephant	John Godfrey Saxe
Mr McGuire	Brian Patten
Wonderful Worms	Celia Warren
Song of Mr Toad	Kenneth Grahame
The Frog	Anon.
The Brushbaby	Roger McGough
The Porcupie	Vernon Scannell
Little Trotty Wagtail	John Clare
The Cuckoo	Anon.
The Eagle	Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Be Like the Bird	Victor Hugo
The Bird’s Nest	John Drinkwater
The Hen	Anon.
Four Ducks on a Pond	William Allingham
The Prayer of the Little Ducks	Carmen Bernos de Gasztold
I Saw a Ship a-Sailing	Anon.
Penelope’s Hats	A. F. Harrold
The Look	Carol Ann Duffy
Snakestanger	Anon.
The Bee’s Knees	George Szirtes
Bees	Peter Goldsworthy
Spelling Bees	Roger McGough
Poetry	John Hegley
The Uncertainty of the Poet	Wendy Cope
OIC	Anon.
The WOW!	Roger McGough
Travel	Edna St Vincent Millay
From a Railway Carriage	Robert Louis Stevenson
The Six Strings	Federico García Lorca
Tarantella	Hilaire Belloc
This Poem . . .	Elma Mitchell
The Strawberry-Yogurt Smell of Words	Mandy Coe
A Dictionary of Snow	Rita Ray
To Lalla, Reading my Verses Topsy-Turvy	Christina Rossetti
The Dictionary Bird	Margaret Mahy
Driven to Distraction	Chrissie Gittins
Pencil World	Tony Mitton
Bookish	Rachel Rooney
Just a Book?	Joshua Seigal
Today I Read a Bus Stop	Kathy Henderson
Wise One	Michael Rosen
Apostrophe	Roger McGough
Comma	Brian Bilston
Comparisons	Anon.
Back Room Boy	Roger Stevens
A Song about Myself	John Keats
A Boy’s Song	James Hogg
The Magic Pebble	Roger McGough
The Magic of the Brain	Jenny Joseph
I Saw a Peacock	Anon.
The Grammarian Saw a Peacock	RMCG
What is Pink?	Christina Rossetti
First Morning	John Agard
A Feather from an Angel	Brian Moses
The Treasures	Clare Bevan
A Memory	Lousie Greig
A Drop in the Ocean	Jane Clarke
Voices of Water	Tony Mitton
Roots	Steve Turner
Bulb	Alison Chisholm
from Home Thoughts from Abroad	Robert Browning
A Slash of Blue	Emily Dickinson
Loveliest of Trees	A. E. Housman
The Sensation of Well-Being	Farrukhi
In the Tree’s Defence	A. F. Harrold
from Blueberries	Robert Frost
Beetroot	Chrissie Gittins
Fish and Chips	A. Elliott-Cannon
The Potatoes My Dad Cooks	Joanne Limburg
The Storm	Sara Coleridge
The Wind in a Frolic	William Howitt
The Windmill	H. W. Longfellow
Daybreak	Galway Kinnell
The Moon and a Cloud	W. H. Davies
The Star	Jane Taylor
Star	Michaela Morgan
Stars	Pie Corbett
Comet	Kate Wakeling
Winter Morning	Ogden Nash
February Twilight	Sara Teasdale
Night	William Blake
One Bright September Morning	Anon.
Pleasant Sounds	John Clare
Where Go the Boats?	Robert Louis Stevenson
The Cataract of Lodore	Robert Southey
Empty Places	Brian Moses
Out in the Desert	Charles Causley
Contentment	E. C. Bentley
Sun is Laughing	Grace Nichols
Changing Places	Stewart Henderson
Smile	Matthew Sweeney