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Summary
Summary
"Until this century, most children's poetry was either syrupy sweet or overblown and didactic, and tended to talk down to its readers. Contemporary children's poets have thrown all that condescension and moralizing out the window, and write with today's real child in mind."
- from the Introduction by Jack Prelutsky
Here in one gloriously illustrated volume are 211 wonderful poems that represent the best this century has to offer. From sibling rivalry, school, monsters, food, and just plain silliness, to such ageless themes as the seasons, Who am I?, and the many moods of childhood, this is a collection that begs to be read aloud and shared with the whole family. The poems, from every decade of this century, showcase 137 famous poets.
Selected by Jack Prelutsky, America's leading children's poet, and illustrated by award-winning watercolorist Meilo So, this useful and beautiful gift is a splendid way to end the century -- or start a new one. Truly a book that families will cherish long after the millennium excitement is over, The 20th-Century Children's Poetry Treasury is a joyous companion volume to the best-selling The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury .
This book has been selected as a Common Core State Standards Text Exemplar (Grades K-1, 2-3, Poetry) in Appendix B.
Author Notes
For 30 years, Jack Prelutsky 's inventive poems have inspired legions of children to fall in love with poetry. His outrageously silly poems have tickled even the most stubborn funny bones, while his darker verses have spooked countless late-night readers. His award-winning books include Tyrannosaurus Was a Beast, The Dragons Are Singing Tonight, The Random House Book of Poetry for Children, and The Beauty of the Beast
While attending a Bronx, New York, grade school, Prelutsky took piano and voice lessons and was a regular in school shows. Surprisingly, Prelutsky developed a healthy dislike for poetry due to a teacher who "left me with the impression that poetry was the literary equivalent of liver. I was told it was good for me, but I wasn't convinced."
In his early twenties, Prelutsky spent six months drawing imaginary animals in ink and watercolor. One evening, he wrote two dozen short poetry verses to accompany each drawing. A friend encouraged him to show them to an editor, who loved his poems (although not his artwork!) and urged him to keep writing. Prelutsky listened and he is still busy writing.
Jack Prelutsky lives on Mercer Island in Washington with his wife, Carolynn.
Meilo So 's first collaboration with Jack Prelutsky was the ALA Notable Book The Beauty of the Beast: Poems from the Animal Kingdom , of which The New York Times Book Review wrote: "Meilo So does enchantingly unreal paintings: whimsical watercolors made with a wet-on-wet technique that preserves the spontaneity of her hand gestures. In very few brush strokes, she captures the essence of organisms from stallions to sea horses. Yet the images themselves are abstract, almost calligraphic pictograms." Her most recent book is Tasty Baby Belly Buttons by Judy Sierra. Meilo So was born in Hong Kong and now lives in England with her husband, who is also an artist.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
For this companion to The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury, Prelutsky combed more than 4000 poetry volumes to select 211 poems by 137 poets. His sampling includes established poets like Langston Hughes, Shel Silverstein and e.e. cummings, but, to Prelutsky's credit, not necessarily their best-known works. The overriding mood is rollickingly upbeat, uncharacteristic for a form renowned for its adeptness at expressing moments of grief or loneliness. Hats off to So (The Beauty of the Beast, with Prelutsky), who visually holds the anthology together. Her people are engagingly limber, her animals unmatched: for instance, she evokes the fitful movements of a squirrel with a few calligraphic strokes, and her wet-on-wet technique suggests the fluffy texture of a kitten's fur or the speed of leaping salmon. In one spread, she ingeniously accommodates eight bug poemsÄfrom poets as diverse as Ogden Nash and Valerie Worth; the poems themselves appear to flit about a central image of two children nearly hidden in a field of wildflowers. She connects four stand-alone poems in another spread ("A Hippopotamusn't" by J. Patrick Lewis and "The Click Clacker Machine" by Donna Lugg Pape are two of them) with a unified palette of pinks and lavenders. Its unvarying tone notwithstanding, this eye-catching collection is likely to lure both future fans of verse and poetry devotees. All ages. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
While less comprehensive than the title suggests, the volume does contain more than 200 poems by 137 mostly contemporary, and mostly American, poets. Each double-page spread bursts with poems focused loosely on a theme--seasons, animals, school, and food among them--as well as lively watercolors delineated with brief, calligraphic brush strokes. Busy but beautiful, this collection is an enticing one. From HORN BOOK Spring 2000, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 3^-5, younger for reading aloud. For this volume, which has the same large-size, heavily illustrated format as the popular Beauty of the Beast: Poems from the Animal Kingdom (1997), Prelutsky has selected more 200 poems for children by 137 poets spanning the twentieth century. Although a few of the poets are English, almost all are contemporary and American, and almost all of the poems were originally published for children. On each double-page spread there are four to six poems on a theme--food, school, reading, pets, sibling rivalry, the seasons, nonsense, etc.--lavishly illustrated with Meilo So's energetic watercolors. The pictures are gorgeous, but as in Beauty of the Beast, the crowded pages sometimes barely leave room for the words, or for imagining what the words suggest. Still, the gift-book design does encourage browsing. Teachers and librarians will want to use this millennial volume with Prelutsky's Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983) to introduce our best children's poets and encourage children to write about their immediate experience. --Hazel Rochman
Library Journal Review
Gr 1-6-This volume, described in Prelutsky's introduction as representative of the "scope and variety of children's verse produced in the twentieth century," contains 211 poems by 137 poets. Some are well known, such as Shel Silverstein, Karla Kuskin, and Prelutsky himself. Some have written mainly for adults, e.g., John Updike, Langston Hughes, and e. e. cummings. Lesser-known and more recently published poets, such as Janet Wong, Deborah Chandra, and Nikki Grimes, are included as well. The greatest number are from the United States. While all of these selections have been published elsewhere, the format and illustrations in this collection give them new life. Poems are presented in unlabeled small groups that cross each double-page spread. Some of these groupings are clearly understood from their content, such as those on the seasons or on insects. Others require readers to think about common threads or themes as they read and study the illustrations, such as the cluster of poems on ways of creating. In another grouping, Prelutsky pairs poems of bats and mice with a poem about creatures who see better at night, calling attention to their shared physical characteristics. So's watercolor illustrations are, by turn, impressionistic, childlike, silly, and serious, as called for by the tone of the poems featured. Sometimes the artist creates one unifying illustration across the spread, such as a cityscape at night that features all types of light found in the group of poems presented there. A splendid collection.-Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
"We Are Plooters" We are Plooters, We don't care, We make messes Everywhere, We strip forests Bare of trees, We dump garbage In the seas. We are Plooters, We enjoy Finding beauty To destroy, We intrude Where creatures thrive, Soon there's little Left alive. Underwater, Underground, Nothing's safe When we're around, We spew poisons In the air, We are Plooters, We don't care. -Jack Prelutsky Copyright (c) 1993 by Jack Prelutsky. Used by permission of the author, who controls all rights. "Where Are You Now?" When the night begins to fall And the sky begins to glow You look up and see the tall City of light begin to grow -- In rows and little golden squares The lights come out. First here, then there Behind the windowpanes as though A million billion bees had built Their golden hives and honeycombs Above you in the air. -Mary Britton Miller From All Aboard by Mary Britton Miller. Copyright (c) 1958 by Pantheon Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Excerpted from The 20th Century Children's Poetry Treasury by Jack Prelutsky All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
