Sing a Song of Popcorn

Sing a Song of Popcorn, Every Child’s Book of Poems. Selected by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, Eva Moore, Mary Michaels White, and Jan Car. Illustrated by Marcia Brown, Leo and Diane Dillon, Richard Egielski, Trina Schart Hyman, Arnold Lobel, Maurice Sendak, Marc Simont, and Margot Zemach. ISBN # 0-590-40645-0

This volume of 128 poems is a varied collection. Drawn from all poetry, ancient to contemporary. These poems encompass most forms of poetry from limericks to free verse. Famous poets such as Carl Sanburg, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and William Butler Yeats are included in this book.

The book is divided into nine categories: Fun with Rhymes, Mostly Weather, Spooky Poems, Story Poems, Mostly Animals, Mostly People, Mostly Nonsense, (Seeing, Feeling, Thinking), In a Few Words. The titles of these categories seem childish and aimed at younger children, but this is not true. The poetry in this volume is for all ages. On one side of the spectrum you have a poem by A. A. Milne titled “Furry Bear”, which begins as follows

If I were a bear,
And a big bear too.
I shouldn’t much care
If it froze or snew;
I shouldn much mind
If it snowed or friz-
I’d be all fur-lined
With a coat like his!

An example from the other side of the spectrum is a passage from a Li Po poem titled “Firefly”

I think
If you flew
Up to the sky
Beside the moon,
And you would twinkle
Like a star.

The beauty of this book is that it is a good entering point for anyone who is unfamiliar with poetry. Since the book is divided into nine sections and is liberally illustrated by nine Caldecott Medal artists, the book is quite approachable by students unfamiliar with poetry. This book is enjoyable just to pick through and read what you want according to your mood. I recommend this book as a volume of poetry for all ages.