Illustrated Nature Poetry for Young Readers
If you are raising a little introverted bookworm, here are some beautiful anthologies of illustrated nature poetry for young readers. Ideal to keep by their bedside, to relax in the power of words on nature!
The Illustrated Emily Dickinson is a gorgeous collection of 25 of Emily’s most beloved poems, with stunning colour collage art. Poems include ‘I’m Nobody!’ and A Bird Came Down the Walk’ along with the poem below (which represents hope in the human soul, inspired by a strong-willed bird, who never gives up). Brief commentary accompanies each poem.
American Emily was the daughter of a US senator. This beautiful woman (who never married) was a recluse, who shut herself away (when not gardening) to write romantic poems on nature.
In life she suffered from depression, anxiety and eye pain (difficult for a writer), which may well have been the reasons why she preferred to be alone. Despite her popularity today, just 10 of her poems were published during her lifetime.
It’s believed that after his wife’s death, a friend of her father’s perhaps had a secret romance with Emily, but there are no letters to prove this. Emily died from a stroke, just 55 years of age.
Dickinson valued her privacy. She kept to herself, rarely leaving her house in her later years, and often refused visitors. Her reclusive lifestyle has become almost legendary.
Yet her isolation helped her focus on writing, giving her the quiet she needed to create her best work. Her letters show she cared deeply about her friends and family, even if she saw them less often.
While Dickinson wrote around 1,800 poems, only a handful were published before she died. Those that did appear in print were often changed by editors who did not understand her new style.
She kept her poems in hand-sewn booklets and trusted her family to care for them. Most people only discovered the full range of her work after her death.
Dickinson’s poems are well-known for their dashes, irregular punctuation and capital letters where you don’t expect them. This style puzzled her early editors, who tried to “fix” it in print.
Although she kept her distance from crowds, Dickinson kept up intense friendships by letter, especially with Susan Gilbert Dickinson (her sister-in-law) and Thomas Wentworth Higginson (a writer and critic).
After Dickinson died in 1886, her younger sister Lavinia found the bundles of poems. Lavinia asked others for help publishing them, leading to the first collections in the 1890s.
Out There in the Wild (nature poems)
Out There In The Wild is a stunning volume of poetry to celebrate the natural world, illustrated by Diana Catchpole. Packed with poems about everything that lives in the sea and rivers, on land or in the sky.
Young readers will meet eagles and skylarks, tigers and elephants, foxes, rabbits, bats, bees and butterflies.
It’s easy to believe that humans are outside of nature. But we are part of nature. As much as the tree is for the woodlouse, or the soil is for the potato.
The Rhythm (by James)
There’s a rhythm out there
there’s a rhythm within
as the seasons turn
as the planets spin.It’s the call of the wild
It’s the breath of the world,
and it’s life so alive
that it has to be heard.It’s the sweep of the swoop
of the owl at dawn
It’s the dash of the fox
through the August cornIt’s the tug of the breeze
and the tree that it shakes
and the nest and the egg
and the crack as it breaks.It’s the river that rolls
as it picks up pace
It’s the moon and the sea
and those great grey waves.
I Am The Seed That Grew the Tree
I Am The Seed That Grew the Tree is a stunning large-format edition of nature poems by various writers. Enjoy a treasury of poems (one for every day of the year) in this gorgeous illustrated gift book.
From Blake to Dickinson, and from Frost to Hardy, from Rossetti to Shakespeare and Wordsworth, there is a poem for everyone
The book features 366 poems, one for each day, including leap years. Each poem has been carefully picked to match the season, capturing the feel of crisp spring mornings, the shimmer of summer heat, autumn leaves and winter frost.
This daily format helps children and adults alike build a gentle routine and look forward to each new day with something meaningful to read.
Pam Ayres (wildlife books for children!)
If you thought that poem Pam Ayres just wrote poems about looking after your teeth, know that these days, nearly all her writings are to inspire young readers to look after the animal kingdom.
She has recently released a beautiful set of four books, all to encourage children to learn about our native wildlife, and protect it and natural habitats:
I Am Hattie the Hare teaches how hares live in the countryside, what they eat and what their perfect habitats are – and how to tell them apart from rabbits (clue: longer legs and black ear-tips!)
I Am Oliver the Otter teaches about these playful creatures that hold hands when they are napping, so they don’t float away!
Children will be taken town to the river bank to find a friendly otter, who meets another otter, and his life changes forever..
I Am Emily the Owl follows a barn owl’s extraordinary journey through her life in the fields, looking for a new home since the loss of her cherished barn.
Learn how these graceful birds hunt for voles and mice, to take back to owlets in their cherished sanctuaries. Beautifully illustrated by Nicola O’Byrne. Includes an information spread on owls.
Did you ever see us, in these fields and grassy places?
Sensed our silent wings; glimpsed our exquisite heart-shaped faces?
I Am Dandy the Dormouse introduces children to one of England’s most endangered creatures, a tiny lovely little thing that sleeps most of the year, as long as it has enough hazelnuts to eat, while awake (to build up fat reserves).
Children will learn how they are born grey, but turn beautiful golden-brown on getting older, and due to sticky feet, can climb trees like acrobats!
More on Poet Pam Ayres
Known for her lovely rural accent, Pam Ayres is one of England’s most beloved poets, who has been blending words with humour for 50 years, since appearing on TV’s Opportunity Knocks. Her poems may seem fun, but the word rhymes are studies worldwide in schools!
Her career was actually in the women’s RAF so her newfound fame was almost accidental, leading her into another job. In her spare time, she rescues ‘featherless’ battery hens and nurtures them in her orchard.
Pam is particularly fond of hedgehogs, and angry about how they are losing natural habitats, and not appreciated. She has even written poems about our spiky friends:
If you’d have been a hedgehog’s friend,
You’d give your pond a shallow end.
Never more from dusk to dawn
Will we eat slugs on your lawn.
So little gratitude you’ve shown.
From now on, you can eat your own
