The Oxford Treasury of Children's Poems

Not to sure where we got this book from but it looks real good on the book shelf and the title makes it sound so academic. Recently I saw the kids holding the book and quite a few times bent together over it; reading and giggling over the poems. Then they started memorizing lines from here and there...telling me how violent, funny and eerie some of the poems are. I decided to take a look.....

Are these verses violent?
My mother said
That the rope must go
Over my head.

Don't Care (Dan's favourite)
Don't Care didn't care,
Don't Care was wild;
Don't Care stole plum and pear
Like any beggar's child.
Don't Care was made to care,
Don't Care was hung:
Don't Care was put in a pot
And boiled till he was done.
Anon
(I was totally shocked when I read this but the kids were thrilled!!!)

The Troll to her Children
Billy Goat Gruff
Was yesterday's lunch,
So go to sleep fast
Or I'll give you a punch.
Jane Yolen
(Wow....should I say this to the kids if they don't want to sleep?)

Lyn told me not to read this but I read....
Squeezes
We love to squeeze bananas,
We love to squeeze ripe plums,
And when they are feeling sad
We love to squeeze our mums.
Brian Patten
(Hmmm....what was she thinking of?)

And here are two ladies who are opposite of each other....the poems are side by side.
Old Mrs Lazibones
Old Mrs Lazibones
And her dirty daughter
Never used soap
And never used water....
Etc etc
Gerda Mayer

On the next page is....
Mrs Lorris, Who died of Being Clean
Mrs Lorris was a fusser
always asking, 'Is it clean?'
etc etc
so she bought a microscope.
Horrid horror, in the eyepiece
microbes swarmed on every side:
too much for Mrs Lorris, who
pegged her nostrils up and died.
Barbara Giles
(such extremes.....but really funny.)

And then there are poems about ghosts and this one is real eerie. It's long; so I've cut short here and there.
The Terrible Path
While playing at the woodland's edge
I saw a child one day,
She was standing near a foaming brook
And a sign half-rotted away.

Etc Etc
She looked pale and frightened,
Her voice was thick with dread.
She spoke through rimmed with green
And this is what she said:

'I saw a signpost with no name,
I was surprised and had to stare,
It pointed to a broken gate
And a path that led nowhere.
etc etc'

Frightened I turned homeward,
But stopped and had to stare
I too saw that signpost with no name
And the path that led nowhere.
Brian Patten
(Eerie...as Lyn said. Now he is trapped too.)

A decent looking book and see how it turns the imagination wild.