Books with title The Oxford Book of Children's Stories

The Children's Book of Christmas Stories is a wonderful assortment of 35 Christmas-themed tales chosen by editor Asa Dickinson. Authors include Charles Dickens ("Christmas at Fezziwig's Warehouse"), Hans Christian Andersen ("The Fir-Tree"), Susan Coolidge ("Toinette and the Elves"), and Elizabeth Harrison ("A Story of the Christ-Child"). Whether it is for children, or for family gatherings, everyone is sure to be captivated and enthralled!

The world of children's poetry is as diverse and as miraculous as the human imagination itself, a land where owls and pussy-cats set to sea in beautiful pea-green boats, and tigers burn bright in the forests of the night. It embraces word play, parody, nonsense, lullaby, and elegy, and ranges from brief nursery rhymes to long narratives. It can be utterly silly, but it also recognizes that if children's lives are full of wonder and delight, they are also fraught with worries, disappointments, and moments of sadness. The best children's poets come to terms with grief as well as joy. Now, in The New Oxford Book of Children's Verse, Neil Philip has surveyed and mapped this delightfully protean landscape, in a book that spans some two hundred and fifty years, from Isaac Watts, the first true children's poet, to such classic figures as Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and A. A. Milne, to scores of contemporary writers, such as Richard Wilbur, Sandra Cisneros, and Jack Prelutsky. The range of poems is remarkable. Young readers will find long narratives such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" ("Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere") and Robert Browning's "Pied Piper of Hamelin" ("Rats! / They fought the dogs and killed the cats") as well as Mick Gowar's "Rat Trap," a political satire that parodies Browning's poem. The book also includes many miniature gems, such as Ogden Nash's "The Eel" ("I don't mind eels / Except at meals, / And the way they feels") and Hughes Mearns's "The Little Man" ("As I was walking up the stair / I met a man who wasn't there; / He wasn't there again today. / I wish, I wish he'd stay away"). There is of course much zany verse, such as Hilaire Belloc's "Jim, Who Ran Away from His Nurse, and was Eaten by a Lion" ("Now, just imagine how it feels / When first your toes and then your heels, / And then by gradual degrees, / Your shins and ankles, calves and knees, / Are slowly eaten, bit by bit. / No wonder Jim detested it!"), Eugene Field's classic "The Duel" ("The gingham dog and the calico cat / Side by side on the table sat"), and A.A. Milne's "Disobedience" ("James James / Morrison Morrison / Weatherby George Dupree / Took great / Care of his Mother, / Though he was only three"). And Philip has also included many thought-provoking poems, such as Langston Hughes's "Children's Rhymes" ("By what sends / the white kids / I ain't sent: / I know I can't / be President"), Countee Cullen's "Incident" ("Now I was eight and very small, / And he was no whit bigger, / And so I smiled, but he poked out / His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger'"), and Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" ("The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy; / But I hung on like death: / Such waltzing was not easy"). Ranging from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," to Robert Frost's "The Pasture," to John Updike's "January," here is an anthology that captures the full breadth of children's verse in English. It will delight children of all ages, and launch the young on a life-long appreciation of poetry.

This anthology brings together the outstanding verse written for children over a period of five hundred years. It contains more than 300 poems written by 123 authors, and includes the rhymed precepts of medieval times, the admonitory verse of Elizabethan Puritans, the inspirational verse of Blake and Christopher Smart, the nonsense verses of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, the nursery verses of Robert Louis Stevenson and A. A. Milne, and the poetical imaginings of Christina Rossetti, Eleanor Farjeon, and Walter de la Mare. It has truly been called "A companion to the mature of all ages, no matter how young."

Here are some of the very best short stories written for children over the last 250 years. Compiled by the well-known children's writer and Carnegie Medalist, Jan Mark, this is the first anthology to trace how children's short stories evolved, ranging from the publication of Sarah Fielding's "The Governess" in 1749, to Nadia Wheatley's "Convict Box" in 1992. Anyone who enjoys children's fiction, whether young or old, will find something to savor in The Oxford Book of Children's Stories. Fairy tales, ghost stories, adventures and escapades in and out of school, every genre is included here, peopled by good children and bad, strict parents and kindly aunts, kings and queens, giants and enchanters. Mark includes work by 44 different authors, including well-known figures such as Louisa May Alcott, Christina Rossetti, Rudyard Kipling, Max Beerbohm, and Carl Sandburg, leading modern writers such as Philippa Pearce, Richard Kennedy, Nadia Wheatley, and Jan Mark herself--plus many long-forgotten tales that are still highly entertaining today. Chronologically arranged, the anthology also serves as an introduction to the historical development of the children's short story, providing insights into the way perceptions of childhood and contemporary attitudes have influenced writers of different periods. But as Jan Mark's discriminating selection demonstrates, the ingredients of a good children's story--as well as the fictional tastes of children themselves--have remained remarkably constant, despite changes in style and outlook. This is a collection to divert and surprise: an ideal survey of the children's short story for parents, professionals--and especially for the children themselves.

Covering a vast historical range, this anthology is the only book to document the evolution of the children's story in writing over the last 250 years. Jan Mark, herself an accomplished children's author, has selected an inspired sampling of children's stories--44 in all--that brings us both the best-loved and widely-read stories from our youth as well as those gems of storytelling long lost to our children's sleepy bedtime ears. Tracing the evolution of the children's short story from 1749 to the 1990s, the collection includes the work of familiar figures like Rudyard Kipling, Louisa May Alcott, Evelyn Nesbit, Christina Rossetti, Walter de la Mare, and Philippa Pearce, along with those long-forgotten tales that have the power to revive the majesty of childhood imagination. Along the way, Mark shows that despite the varied history of children's writing, the ingredients of a good children's story--magic, mystery, and enchantment--have remained constant, and that they can still captivate the minds of children (and parents) today.

The world of children's poetry is as diverse and as miraculous as the human imagination itself, a land where owls and pussy-cats set to sea in beautiful pea-green boats, and tigers burn bright in the forests of the night. It embraces word play, parody, nonsense, lullaby, and elegy, and ranges from brief nursery rhymes to long narratives. It can be utterly silly, but it also recognizes that if children's lives are full of wonder and delight, they are also fraught with worries, disappointments, and moments of sadness. The best children's poets come to terms with grief as well as joy. Now, in The New Oxford Book of Children's Verse, Neil Philip has surveyed and mapped this delightfully protean landscape, in a book that spans some two hundred and fifty years, from Isaac Watts, the first true children's poet, to such classic figures as Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and A. A. Milne, to scores of contemporary writers, such as Richard Wilbur, Sandra Cisneros, and Jack Prelutsky. The range of poems is remarkable. Young readers will find long narratives such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" ("Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere") and Robert Browning's "Pied Piper of Hamelin" ("Rats! / They fought the dogs and killed the cats") as well as Mick Gowar's "Rat Trap," a political satire that parodies Browning's poem. The book also includes many miniature gems, such as Ogden Nash's "The Eel" ("I don't mind eels / Except at meals, / And the way they feels") and Hughes Mearns's "The Little Man" ("As I was walking up the stair / I met a man who wasn't there; / He wasn't there again today. / I wish, I wish he'd stay away"). There is of course much zany verse, such as Hilaire Belloc's "Jim, Who Ran Away from His Nurse, and was Eaten by a Lion" ("Now, just imagine how it feels / When first your toes and then your heels, / And then by gradual degrees, / Your shins and ankles, calves and knees, / Are slowly eaten, bit by bit. / No wonder Jim detested it!"), Eugene Field's classic "The Duel" ("The gingham dog and the calico cat / Side by side on the table sat"), and A.A. Milne's "Disobedience" ("James James / Morrison Morrison / Weatherby George Dupree / Took great / Care of his Mother, / Though he was only three"). And Philip has also included many thought-provoking poems, such as Langston Hughes's "Children's Rhymes" ("By what sends / the white kids / I ain't sent: / I know I can't / be President"), Countee Cullen's "Incident" ("Now I was eight and very small, / And he was no whit bigger, / And so I smiled, but he poked out / His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger'"), and Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" ("The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy; / But I hung on like death: / Such waltzing was not easy"). Ranging from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," to Robert Frost's "The Pasture," to John Updike's "January," here is an anthology that captures the full breadth of children's verse in English. It will delight children of all ages, and launch the young on a life-long appreciation of poetry.

Stories long loved, like Hans Christian Andersen's The Tinderbox, and stories just found, like Maggie Scraggle Loves the Beautiful Ice-Cream Man by Jill McDonald, sit side by side in this treasury of stories guaranteed to enthrall. It's perfect for read-aloud while young listeners delight in the amusing color illustrations. And the youngest readers will enjoy the easy-to-read stories and appreciate the large format of the anthology. Authors include Oscar Wilde, Ted Hughes, Rudyard Kipling, Geraldine McCaughrean, and other masters of children's literature along with authors newer to the field. Families will find this collection is truly a treasure, sure to be a classic anthology for generations to come.