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Collected Poems for Children
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes has written some of the most captivating verse for children in recent times. This volume collects, for the first time, four decades of Hughes's children's poems, from Meet My Folks! (1961) to The Mermaid's Purse.
Lavishly illustrated by Raymond Briggs, with two hundred original illustrations, the edition is carefully prepared by reading age, beginning with poems for younger readers and working up to Hughes's material for young adults. The Collected Poems for Children is a delight for children and adults alike. The only poet of such stature to have written so prolifically for children.
Beautifully illustrated throughout by the acclaimed and award-winning illustrator and writer Raymond Briggs all his children's poems collected together and arranged according to age for the first time. An essential poetry collection for children of all ages and a perfect gift book Greens, blues, the goldfish adore them!
Winter-long they're thankful for them.
When snowy winds are slicing in through all the little crannies
The shrubs and birds in our neighbours' gardens envy those in my granny's. Her shrubs have scarves and pullovers,
Her birds have ear-muffs over their ears,
And cats that come asking for 'Titbits please'
Go trotting away with little bootees.
A frosty Octopus received a stout eight-fingered mitten.
A Camel whose important hump tended to get frost-bitten
Has a tea-cosy with tassels on it.
A grass-snake has a sock with a bonnet.
Folks can buy clothes at some shop or other.
The creatures depend on my grandmother.
My Other Granny
My Granny is an Octopus
At the bottom of the sea,
And when she comes to supper She brings her family.
She chooses a wild wet windy night
When the world rolls blind
As a boulder in the night-sea surf,
And her family troops behind.
The sea-smell enters with them
As they sidle and slither and spill With their huge eyes and their tiny eyes
And a dripping ocean-chill.
Some of her cousins are lobsters
My Aunt
You've heard how a green thumb
Makes flowers come
Quite without toil
Out of any old soil.
Well, my Aunt's thumbs were green.
At a touch, she had blooms Of prize Chrysanthemums -
The grandest ever seen.
People from miles around
Came to see those flowers
And were truly astounded
By her unusual powers. One day a little weed
Pushed up to drink and feed
Among the pampered flowers At her water-can showers.
Day by day it grew
With ragged leaves and bristles
Till it was tall as me or you -
It was a King of Thistles.
'Prizes for flowers are easy,'
My Aunt said in her pride.
'But was there ever such a weed
The whole world wide?'
She watered it, she tended it, It grew alarmingly.
As if I had offended it,
It bristled over me.
'Oh Aunt!' I cried.
'Beware of that! I saw it eat a bird.'
She went on polishing its points
As if she hadn't heard.
Pig I am the Pig.
I saw in my sleep
A dreadful egg.
What a thing to have seen!
And what can it mean
That the Sun's red eye
Which seems to fry
In the dawn sky
So frightens me?
Why should that be?
The meaning is deep.
Upward at these
Hard mysteries
A humble hog I gape agog.
But I'm all heart -
Heart that could not Softer soften!
'An ugly girl,
But often, often With a pearl.'
Sea-anemone
For such a tender face
A touch is like a danger.
But the dance of my many arms
To the music of the sea
Brings many a friend to me.
None can resist my grace.
All fall for my charms.
Many a friend, many a stranger,
Many an enemy
Melts in my embrace.
I am anemone.
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The Maya - History in Infographics
History in Infographics helps children to visualise facts and statistics using a clever and appealing mix of graphics and numbers. The colourful, high-impact design will appeal to a wide range of children, from visual learners to struggling readers, capturing and then holding their attention. Infographics are a really exciting, different way to learn about core historical topics, and are ideal for fact-hungry children, revision work, and to improve the quality of presentations.
History in Infographics: The Mayans allows children to explore the Mayan civilisation like never before, finding out how people lived, what they ate, what they wore, how they were ruled, the games they played and how the civilisation died out. Children can discover that the Maya were the first people to make hot chocolate, and how they did it, that they went to war to capture prisoners they then sacrificed to their gods, and all about other South American civilisations, including the Aztecs and the Incas.
Ideal for children of 9+, and fact and history lovers of all ages, the Mayans have never seemed more exciting!
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