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Robert Louis Stevenson ?
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Hello! I am looking at some poetry for 1st grade. I have seen Robert Louis Stevenson suggested here and AO. Poetry isn’t something I know a great deal about but I am having trouble enjoying his poetry. Many of the poems seem to talk about nursese/nannies which I don’t understand why that is relevant or interesting to a homeschool child who won’t have a nanny and several make kids out to be annoying from an adult perspecitve. Curious to know more about why his poems are so highly recommended. Would love some suggestions on other poetry.
Thanks!
I love RLS. Try Poetry for Young People–there are several poets featured in their books, and they are only 6.95. RLS wrote poetry FOR children. I believe he was British, so that would be why there are so many references to nannies/nurses.
One of our favorites is The Swing:
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside–Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown–
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!I hadn’t considered Emily Dickinson for the kids, but that was a suggestion in the “Planning your CM education” and I (and more importantly the kids) are loving E.D. We bought the Poetry for Young People book and they want to read all of them instead of just picking one or 2!
We also plan to study James Whitcomb Riley as I grew up in Indiana and his poetry was quite common there.
Olivia
You need to remember that at the time that RLS was writing his poetry, a good portion of his audience were British who had nurses and/or nannies and he would have experienced this and written with what he knew. He was actually a Scotsman himself. His poetry is fantastic for young children and I still enjoy it now as a middle aged woman. Linda
My children immensely enjoy RLS. We have the Tasha Tudor illustrated version, which is beautiful. My children never had an issue with the nanny/nurses stuff; they were already familiar with the language from the Winnie the Pooh series. Speaking of Pooh, the other poems they love are the When we Were Very Young and Now we Are Six by A.A. Milne. There is an audio of these as well, read by anEnglishwoman, which of courswe enhances it especially and you may find it easier to listen to the poems first to get an ear for ‘how’ it should sound when read.
Another good choice is Poems Every Child Should Know; excellent collection. The only version I know is at Yesterdays Classics and an audio from Homeschool Radioshows.
I definitely recommend all of these…they will provide an excellent foundation of cultural literacy and appreciation of beautiful language.
Rachel
Just want to encourage you to keep on reading poetry with your kids. I don’t think poetry was explored much (at least for me) when we were kids, but it seems that the more you read and expose yourself and your kids, the more enjoyable it becomes. Also, I’d strongly second the recommendation of AA Milne and the books mentioned by him – we had a lot of fun with those. Good Luck!
Thank you so much everyone for your thoughtful and encouraging responses. I will for sure check out AA Milne. Good point about the timeframe in which his poems were written.
There’s an excellent price of less than $10.00 at Amazon for unabridged.
Type in search ‘When we were very Young and Now we are Six audio’ and it’s the first selection, with Miranda Richardson.
Then when you click on it, look at the smaller written choices of ‘new’ and ‘used’ under the Amazon price
and you’ll find a 9 new ones starting at 3.65 + s/h.
I’d post the link, but I can’t figure out how to do that anymore with this new format on the forum. Let me know if you can’t find it.
Rachel
One other hint for those struggling with poetry or literature. Prior to reading check the background of the author, read a short bio, find out what period of time he lived in, where he lived (or she of course) whether he came from a wealthy or poor family and find out everything you can – that will then put the piece of writing in context and will make it far more understandable and you will better be able to explain it to your children. Reading Charles Dickens for example, without knowing about his life would make his books far less meaningful. I always have my children research the authors they read prior to reading the book for that reason, they are high school age, so do it themselves. It is best that you vet the author’s life yourself when your children are younger, some authors led pretty racey lives and it may not be appropriate for a young child; if you research the author, you can tell them only what they need to know. Hope that helps.
We are currently memorizing The Swing! It’s such a cute poem, and since I have two kids who love to swing, it’s perfect. “A Child’s Garden of Verses” is a book full of RLS’s poems from childhood. Our library didn’t have a copy, but was able to get one through inter-library loan fairly quickly.
It is out of print, so you could make a copy of it for yourself to have in the future.[Moderator’s note: please see our post on copyright and out-of-print books. FYI, A Child’s Garden of Verses is in print and readily available from several publishers.] I think there are around 40 or so of his poems in that book…enough to keep you going for a while!I have a question regarding A Child’s Garden of Verses, illustrated by Tasha Tudor.
This seems to be a very loved edition, but one (and the only one) negative review said, “I was distressed with how many of the poems from the original Garden of Verses had been eliminated. I was more interested in the writing and would have prefered all of the text from the original.”
What are your thoughts? Is this true? Do they eliminate some poems? Does it matter? Are the illustrations worth the “sacrifice” of some poems?
I’m just wondering what edition I should buy 😉
I do not know about any poems being eliminated, obviously all his poems are not included but the copy I have today is identical to the copy my mother read to me as a child. It is 100% worth owning for the poetry and the illustrations. If you are struggling with poetry sounding strange or from a different era, you can just talk about that with the kids. After every poem I ask them to tell me how RLS felt about …(auntie’s skirts, the wind, playing pirate) and those are all things our kids can relate to, they are just stated in more beautiful language than we speak. Sometimes as I am reading I wonder if my kids are “understanding” but at 4 & 7 they ask me to read poetry all the time. They also love Rosseti. I would encourage you to keep trying, maybe in smaller incriments but if poetry doesn’t mesh well with your family, they will still graduate and be intelligent adults even if they do not own RLS with Tasha Tudor. Don’t feel like you have to do everything exactly the way other people do it, you’re the mom and you get to make the choices, that is half the fun of being the mom- we are finally in charge!
The Tasha Tudor version does not have all the poems. I personally would prefer to have the poems. I do own a Tasha Tudor illustrated version, and we enjoy looking at it, but I read from a complete version of the poems. If you really want to get the Tudor, get it, and then get an inexpensive text copy to read from also.
My children have always enjoyed RLS as well. There’s a version illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith-her illustrations are beautiful; maybe her version has all the poems. Then you can get exquisite artwork and all the poems. Perhaps it can be found online, too.
Another excellent compilation are the Child’s Book of Verses Vol 1-3. My children read those daily aloud and the content is very pleasureable and cute.
Rachel
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