Okay, we admit it. We do become a mite desperate at times for someone (anyone) other than us to do the next round of Humpty, Dumpty. Susie Tallman, to the rescue. This CD has 37 (!) tracks of various nursery rhymes and other classic poems set to almost every imaginable arrangement, from rap to swing. There are a few old-fashioned favorites mixed in among the mostly Mother Goose fare, including ...
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Cost:
$13.98
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This brilliant adaptation of Lewis Carroll's famous grown-up poem will knock the socks of both parent readers and preschooler listeners. The magic of Carroll's verse is that its nonsense words tell a compelling tale, though you find you can't retell the same tale in "sense" words when it is over. Enter Christopher Myers, who recasts the "slithy toves" and mome raths outgrabe" into a hot summer, urban street scene and ...
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$15.99
$10.87
The first Thanksgiving may have taken place in the Seventeenth Century, but Thanksgiving was reborn as a national holiday in the Nineteenth Century - and here is its most famous ode. Originally published in an anthology for children in 1840, this lovely poem is a true classic and not to be missed. It takes you and your little ones back to a time when the way to grandfather's house for ...
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You could easily think that a collection of haikus is well beyond the ken of our adored preschool set. You could also be wrong. Yes, this is a book you should keep around on the shelves for some grade school project when your much-grown former preschooler is writing her own haikus. But yes, this is also a book you will dive into right now, long before your tiny one can ...
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$16.99
$11.55
This volume truly has it all. There are four sections, beginning with the easiest babyhood rhymes and games, moving through the Mother Goose classics to the nonsense chants and games of the elementary school crowd, and ending with riddles and poems and limericks for we bigger kids. It's a beautifully illustrated compendium, and it will serve your family well.
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$12.99
$11.04
This charmingly illustrated book is really a game of "I Spy" masquerading as a romp through the nursery rhyme and other classic folk tale favorites. You can certainly read it happily to a very little one, just enjoying the pictures and the rhyming couplets on each page. But the real trick of it takes a preschooler to find the hidden image on each page -- "Cinderella on the stairs/I spy ...
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Susan Jeffers's exquisite pictures of the snowy forest and its creatures bring this beloved poem to life for small readers. It's a beautiful reading experience for kids and grownups, and we can think of no better way to share Robert Frost and the magic of winter with your children. The hush of the winter woods is spellbinding, and promises to mesmerize the most raucous of little snow-lovers in your midst.
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$16.99
$11.55
Most of us have a preferred version of The Night Before Christmas. All we can do is humbly tell you about our own favorite, the loveliest we've ever seen! The pictures are sweet and old-fashioned, yet fresh and lively too. Children were never so snuggly as they are in Gyo Fujikawa's illustrations, sugar plums never so dreamy, and St. Nick was never even nearly as twinkly. But whatever edition of ...
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Sylvia Long reworks the classic lullaby we all know and love to wonderful effect. In truth, we're usually a bit wary of attempts to improve on childhood classics. But Long's new lyrics stand on their own. Rather than promising "a diamond ring," these verses offer to show a child the wonders of the natural world (a shooting star) and the comforts of home (a teddy bear, a quilt). Your child ...
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This bedtime favorite is as beautiful a love poem as has ever been written. The story's imaginary game of hide-and-seek between a little bunny and his mother appeals to children's dreams of running away and even stronger desire always to be found. Its gentle tempo and dream-like images have sent countless little ones off to sleep with the lulling assurance that their very own mother bunny will be ...
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It's a silly book. It's a strange book. It's the perfect introduction to Dr. Seuss. In this most nonsensical of nonsense poems, Dr. Seuss teaches rhythm, rhyme and the delights of manipulating language. He also teaches the fundamental precept of Seussian philosophy: “Everyday, from here to there, funny things are everywhere." Our children know that already, but we parents do need the reminder once in ...
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We all probably have, somewhere upon our shelves, a weighty anthology of poetry that we last opened when studying for a college English exam. Now that we are parents, it has crossed our minds that our rhyme and rhythm-loving children might enjoy hearing some of those poems that we struggled to parse in English 101. But how to choose? Which ones, of the many thousands? We are lucky indeed that ...
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$19.95
$13.57
This is the definitive source for all of the Mother Goose standards. It's the source material, the standard line upon which all the other books riff. It is old-fashioned but still engaging, the beautiful "classic classic." It may well be the same volume you had when you were young, and you'll be charmed to see it again.
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We do revere Jack Prelutsky's poems, even if they haven't been as close to our hearts for as long as, say, Sendak's Chicken Soup with Rice. And when Mr. Prelutsky turns his talents towards the months of the year and works through the perspective of a dog, we are really charmed. This book is funny and sweet and your little one will simply love it. The illustrations are little gems ...
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Okay, we admit it: we think this elegant volume makes a wonderful gift, but we mean that is really a gift for parents. But preschoolers themselves will love it too, and sharing it with their particularly lucky parent will forge such a bond! This is a witty and wacky (and occasionally slightly wicked) collection of nonsense poems, including such masters of the genre as Edward Gorey, Lewis Carroll and Edward ...
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$15.95
$12.44
Poems about picnics, pretending, and puppies make this book the book to introduce little ones to poetry about the world around them. Jack Prelutsky, one of today's most respected children's poets, has selected more than 200 short poems--old favorites, traditional rhymes, and humorous verses--that will delight young listeners. The poems cover a wide range of experiences in a young child's life, from everyday events to special days to the world ...
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$19.95
$13.57
This quite modern take on the classic rhymes is simply breathtakingly lovely. The pen and watercolor drawings just blow us away. Some lesser known rhymes are mixed in, and many of the poems are visually linked through their illustrations (the queen in Pussycat, Pussycat is sitting next to Old King Cole; a frog celebrating the rain is shadowed by a mouse plaintively wishing Rain, Rain, Go Away). The characters are ...
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Not only are these fantastic short poems amusing, but they are almost instantly memorizable. And, trust us, the sound of that little voice you love so much trilling off a little verse will really make you a believer in the power of poetry! What could be more charming than "The kangaroo loves to leap. / Into the air it zooms, / While baby's fast asleep / Inside its kangaroom."?! Neither ...
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$7.00
Your little one is fully versed (pun intended) in the joys of rhythm and rhyme, so let him loose! Speak his mind (or write it) and see what clever little thoughts he's got in there. You already think his spare little spoken sentences are poetry, so deem them so officially. Okay, okay, your preschooler can't write yet, but you can slap these over-sized magnets up on the fridge and help ...
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$19.99
All parents have been through this: you start humming a favorite tune from your childhood, maybe you manage to recall a couple of verses, but then your mind goes blank. Meanwhile, your little one is clamoring for you to "keep singing!" Amy Appleby comes to the rescue with her amazing compendium of lyrics and music to every children's song you've ever heard of, and many more (200 selections ...
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Cost:
$21.95
$14.93
We adore nursery rhymes, especially this lovely collection of Latin American poems, songs, rhymes for children. Many of the Spanish language children's books available today are translations of familiar English titles (Buenas Noches, Luna, anyone?) which is just fine. But it's ever so much more fun and instructive, we think, to read verse in the original (and an English translation is provided on the opposite page in case your high ...
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$14.99
$10.19
Yes, you're right. This is an audio CD, not a book. But it's the best audio CD of the year reading one of the best books of 2007, as well as one of the best books of two years ago! And it features the author (and Children's Poet Laureate) Jack Prelutsky reading all of his magnificent, funny poems from these books - which adds up to more than an hour ...
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$17.95
$12.21
You surely remember this simply spectacular collection of poetry from when you were (ahem) younger. Here's a hint - if you don't want to count exactly how many decades ago that was, don't buy the special edition with "30th anniversary" emblazoned on the cover. Alright then, it's not new to you, but it will be to your preschooler, and Mr. Silverstein is the universally acknowledged master of funny poems for ...
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Cost:
$18.99
$12.91
This board book version has almost 20 of the best known rhymes, and it makes them come alive through the vivid, immediately engaging illustrations. The look of the characters is older where it needs to be (Mary Had a Little Lamb) and yet snappily modern where it can be (there's something about the Wee Willie Winkie page that looks like modern art). It's the perfect size to be popped into ...
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Cost:
$6.99
