A Child's Garden of Verses

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Overview

This volume contains a compilation of delightful children's poems written by Robert Louis Stevenson. This timeless treasury is ideal for introducing children to poetry, and it would make for a great addition to collections of related literature. The poems of this anthology include: "Bed in Summer", "A Thought", "At the Sea-Side", "Young Night-Thought", "Whole Duty of Children", "Rain", "Pirate Story", "Foreign Lands", "Windy Nights", "Travel", "Singing", "Looking Forward", "A Good Play", and more. Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850 - 1894) was a famous Scottish essayist, novelist, poet, and travel writer whose famous works include "Treasure Island" and "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781473375307
Publisher:	Read Books Ltd.
Publication date:	11/27/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	66
File size:	256 KB
Age Range:	9 - 15 Years

About the Author

Poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was the author of a number of classic books for young readers, including Treasure Island , Kidnapped, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Mr. Stevenson was often ill as a child and spent much of his youth confined to his nursery, where he first began to compose stories even before he could read, and where he was cared for by his nanny, Alison Cunningham, to whom A Child's Garden of Verses is dedicated.

Diane Goode is the illustrator of more than fifty beloved and critically acclaimed picture books, including the Caldecott Honor Book When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant and the New York Times bestseller Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts. You can visit her online at www.dianegoode.com.

Peter Glassman is the owner of Books of Wonder, the New York City bookstore and publisher specializing in new and old imaginative books for children. He is also the editor of the Books of Wonder Classics, a series of deluxe facsimiles and newly illustrated editions of timeless tales. And he is the author of The Wizard Next Door, illustrated by Steven Kellogg. Mr. Glassman lives in New York City.

Date of Birth:

November 13, 1850

Date of Death:

December 3, 1894

Place of Birth:

Edinburgh, Scotland

Place of Death:

Vailima, Samoa

Education:

Edinburgh University, 1875

Read an Excerpt

Bed in Summer

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.

In summer quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people's feet

Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,

And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?

Table of Contents

Bed in Summer; A Thought; At the Sea-Side; Young Night-Thought; Whole Duty of Children; Rain; Pirate Story; Foreign Lands; Windy Nights; Travel; Singing; Looking Forward; A Good Play; Where Go the Boats?; Auntie’s Skirts; The Land of Counterpane; The Land of Nod; My Shadow; System; A Good Boy; Escape at Bedtime; Marching Song; The Cow; Happy Thought; The Wind; Keepsake Mill; Good and Bad Children; Foreign Children; The Sun Travels; The Lamplighter; My Bed is a Boat; The Moon; The Swing; Time to Rise; Looking-Glass River; Fairy Bread; From a Railway Carriage; Winter-Time; The Hayloft; Farewell to the Farm; North-West Passage; Good-Night; Shadow March; In Port; The Child Alone; The Unseen Playmate; My Ship and I; My Kingdom; Picture-Books in Winter; My Treasures; Block City; The Land of Story-Books; Armies in the Fire; The Little Land; Garden Days; Night and Day; Nest Eggs; The Flowers; Summer Sun; The Dumb Soldier; Autumn Fires; The Gardener; Historical Associations; Envoys; To Willie and Henrietta; To My Mother; To Auntie; To Minnie; To My Name-Child; To Any Reader

Editorial Reviews

A plethora of poetry books arrive just in time for National Poetry Month. Now available in a board book edition, A Child's Garden of Verses, compiled by Cooper Edens, pairs eight of Robert Louis Stevenson's poems with turn-of-the-century illustrations to captivate a child's imagination. For instance, "Happy Thought" ("The world is so full of a number of things,/ I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings") is embedded like a placard within a pen-and-ink by E. Mars (1900), while opposite, a 1940 illustration by Ruth Mary Hallock depicts a happy assembly of children and kittens, gathering for a snack break after a game of croquet. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Rendered in brilliant candy-shop colors, Joanna Isles's folk-art designs, whimsical characters and striking typestyles put a beguiling face on a beloved work: Abrams's edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses glows with charm and vitality.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This beautifully illustrated edition of a collection first published in 1885 is a reminder of how well many of these poems hold up....As for the poems themselves, Stevenson’s interest in cultivating the world of the imagination is a great message for today’s busy, media-saturated culture.” — School Library Journal

From the Publisher

2017-09-18
A sumptuous reissue of the classic children's collection.First published in Great Britain in 1885, Stevenson's "Garden," Alexander McCall Smith tells readers in his enlightening new foreword, has been in print ever since. Given the privileged, white, colonialist perspective glimpsed in many of these 64 lyric poems, today's audience may wonder what gives this volume such staying power. Stevenson's nostalgia for the unfettered cares of childhood comes powerfully across throughout. Modern children may have a hard time envisioning his Victorian "Auntie's Skirts" as "they trail behind her up the floor, / And trundle after through the door." More problematically, his worldly vantage is shockingly dated at best: "Little Indian, Sioux or Crow, / Little frosty Eskimo, / Little Turk or Japanee, / O! don't you wish that you were me?" But Stevenson's ability to craft and describe other realms still soars, demonstrating that the imagination can transport one out of anything—illness, boredom, even loneliness. His crisp depictions of winter, causing "tingling thumbs," and appreciation of the childhood hardship of having to go to bed in summer "When all the sky is clear and blue," invite children of any age to "look / Through the windows of this book," and "in another garden, play." Vistas real and imagined blossom again in Stevenson and Foreman's caring hands—but caregivers will want to choose the blooms they share with care. (Poetry. 5-10)

Kirkus Reviews