The aim has been to assemble a collection of poems that the owner will not outgrow. That is why the Mother Goose rhymes have always been so successful.

The Everyman Anthology of Poetry for Children is a treasury of great poems chosen for the sheer pleasure they offer to readers of all ages. Compiler Gillian Avery's aim was to avoid condescending to children and "to assemble a collection of poems that the owner will not outgrow." With that in mind, she has included very few works that were written solely for a young audience. The more than 250 pieces gathered here range from ballads to epics, from inspired nonsense to memorable reflections on love and death. A wide variety of poets grace these pages, from Mother Goose to Shakespeare, from Emily Dickinson to Noel Coward, from Robert Frost to Ogden Nash. Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" and Rosetti's "Goblin Market" will enchant young readers as much as T. S. Eliot's "The Naming of Cats" and Lewis Carroll's "The Mock-Turtle's Song" will entertain them. Adorned with engravings by the eighteenth-century artist Thomas Bewick, this collection belongs in every family's library.