The New Oxford Book of Children's Verse, edited by Neil Philip (Oxford, no price given)
Silliness and seriousness are given equal weight in this generous, unfussy anthology; the poems, or rather, the poets, are arranged simply in chronological order, an unusual approach in these days of gimmicky chapter titles, and the selection is meaty, with Blake, Keats and Ted Hughes in there alongside Edward Lear, A.A. Milne, Roger McGough and company (see poem on page 11). Philip goes out of his way to include poets from Caribbean and other non-English backgrounds, with variable but sometimes spectacularly successful results, like Grace Nichols's wonderful "Wha me mudder do", with its line every right-thinking mother would wish to emulate: "she paddle down river/in she own canoe."
