From schooldays to summer holidays, and from childhood fantasies to nostalgic reminiscences, writers have provided us with a rich seam of children’s poetry over the years.

This delightful selection brings over seventy poems together, from such celebrated poets as A.A. Milne, Kenneth Grahame, Hilaire Belloc, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edward Lear, Michael Rosen, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Allan Ahlberg, Spike Milligan and Rudyard Kipling.

It mixes classic titles such as ‘The King’s Breakfast’, ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’, ‘Teeth’, ‘The Jumblies’ and ‘Jabberwocky’ with more recent entries including ‘First Day at School’, ‘Aliens Stole my Underpants’, ‘Talking Turkeys!!’ and ‘The Computer’s First Christmas Card’.

Acknowledgments to: The Society of Authors as Literary Representative of the Estate of A.E. Housman, The Literary Trustees of Walter de la Mare, and the Society of Authors as their representative.

Poems by Charles Causley taken from Collected Poems 1951 – 2000, published by Macmillan. ‘A Child’s Calendar’ taken from Selected Poems by George Mackay Brown, published by John Murray (Publishers) Ltd. ‘The Grass House’ is from OUT AND ABOUT Copyright © 1988 Shirley Hughes. Recorded by permission of Walker Books Ltd., London.

‘Don’t Call Alligator Long-Mouth Till You Cross River’ is from Say It Again, Granny! by John Agard, published by Bodley Head. Reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd. Two Ogden Nash poems used by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd. Copyright © 1936 by Ogden Nash, renewed. All rights reserved.