April is National Poetry Month: Favorites new and newfangled for girls and boys

Check out these selections from Candlewick Press — some lyrical, some laugh-out-loud fun — sure to please girls and boys interested in reading, writing, and sometimes singing poetry in celebration of National Poetry Month.

One, Two, Three Mother Goose edited by Iona Opie and illustrated by Rosemary Wells ($8.99, ages 0-3) Nursery rhymes featuring numbers delight little ones, and you and yours will find bunches here. From One, Two, Buckle My Shoe to Dickory, Dickory, Dock (yeah, I always thought it was Hickory, too) plus several in between, here are the sing-song words of favorites plus some parents and grandparents likely forgot... or misremembered.

*****

A Great Big Cuddle: Poems for the Very Young by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Chris Riddell ($19.99, ages 3-7) Author Michael Rosen shares a few of the humorous pieces readers will find in this hardcover, huggable, colorful collection:

*****

Slickety Quick: Poems About Sharks by Skila Brown, illustrated by Bob Kolar ($16.99, ages 6-9) Young readers and shark lovers will shiver and shake and appreciate the sing-song rhymes describing the amazing undersea creatures, many most of us have never heard of. There's the mako shark, cookie-cutter shark, goblin shark and more fearsome and fascinating fish (of sorts), each featured in a full-page spread of its own.

*****

Among a Thousand Fireflies by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder ($15.99, ages 3-7) Lovely and lyrical, this poetic ode to the firefly features beautiful photographs and touching text of two lightning bugs longing to make a connection. A sweet sampling:

*****

Shrunken Treasures: Literary Classics, Short, Sweet, and Silly by Scott Nash ($15.99, ages 5-8) One of the most unique picture books I've seen in a long time. The perfect description is from the inside cover of this oversized book, so no sense in me attempting something better. "Nine of the world's best-known stories and books have been reduced, like slowly simmered cherries, to tart and tasty mouthfuls." Brilliant and bright illustrations lend additional lunacy to all nine tales: The Odyssey, Frankenstein, Moby-Dick, Jane Eyre, A Thousand and One Nights, Hamlet, Don Quixote, The Metamorphosis, and Remembrance of Things Past. It's never too soon — and never more hilariously simple — to introduce youngsters to literature.

*****

I Am Bear by Ben Bailey Smith and Sav Akyuz ($15.99, ages 2-5). In the opening paragraph above, I mentioned singing, and this is the one of the bunch made for exactly that. Here, the entire book... in song:

Disclosure: I received this books free for review; all opinions are my own.