First book / Rita Dove -- The quarrel / Maxine Kumin -- Letter to Bee / Emily Dickinson -- Hurt no living thing / Christina Rossetti -- Stopping by woods on a snowy evening / Robert Frost -- Wolf / Billy Collins -- The tiger who wore white gloves / Gwendolyn Brooks -- from "The adventures of Isabel" / Ogden Nash -- On a flimmering floom you shall ride / Carl Sandburg -- El chicle / Ana Castillo -- The dentist and the crocodile / Roald Dahl -- Bear song / Kay Ryan -- Jabberwocky / Lewis Carroll -- Sneeze / Maxine Kumin -- Mrs. Mitchell's underwear / Dennis Lee -- Okay, brown girl, okay / James Berry -- Vowel owl (Roger) / John Hollander -- Magic words / Anonymous Inuit Poet, trans. by Edward Field -- The unwritten / W.S. Merwin -- Crayons : a rainbow poem / Jane Yolen -- Gas / C.K. Williams -- Knitted things / Karla Kuskin -- from Macbeth / William Shakespeare -- Frodo's song in Bree / J.R.R. Tolkien -- Eagle poem / Joy Harjo -- The Negro speaks of rivers / Langston Hughes -- I rise, I rise / Anonymous Osage poet -- Verses from "The elephant's child" / Rudyard Kipling -- Alphabet, pt. 1 / Seamus Heaney -- John Smith and his son, John Smith / Wallace Stevens -- About the teeth of sharks / John Ciardi -- Dinosaur diets / Jane Yolen -- My sister saw a dinosaur / Mary Ann Hoberman -- Joey / Brad Leithauser -- Rabbit / Mary Ann Hoberman -- At last / James Stevenson -- Epigram engraved on the collar of a dog which I gave to His Royal Highness / Alexander Pope -- Balloons / William Jay Smith -- Hide and seek / Robert Graves.

Every time I climb a tree / David McCord -- The reason I like chocolate / Nikki Giovanni -- Trips / Nikki Giovanni -- Mommies / Nikki Giovanni -- Lineage / Margaret Walker -- Snowmen / Agha Shahid Ali -- Good luck gold / Janet S. Wong -- The secret song / Margaret Wise Brown -- Why? / James Stevenson -- The question / Karla Kuskin -- First grade / William Stafford -- Crying / Galway Kinnell -- Art class / X.J. Kennedy -- How to paint a donkey / Naomi Shihab Nye -- Daddy fell into the pond / Alfred Noyes -- Working with mother / Myra Cohn Livingston -- A faery song / W.B. Yeats -- The unicorn / Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Paul Muldoon -- The lion and the lily / Elizabeth Spires -- hist whist / E.E. Cummings -- The ghost and Jenny Jemima / Dennis Lee -- from "The raven" / Edgar Allan Poe -- Sheep party / John Fuller -- Jamacian song / James Berry -- Halfway down / A.A. Milne -- Count to ten and we'll be there / Rita Dove -- opposite poem 4 / Richard Wilbur -- opposite poems 7 and 20 / Richard Wilbur -- from "The tale of Custard the Dragon" / Ogden Nash -- Good hot dogs / Sandra Cisneros -- Lies, all lies / William Cole -- Which is the best? / James Stevenson -- Casey at the bat / Ernest L. Thayer -- The testing tree, pt. 1 / Stanley Kunitz -- Skating in the wind / Kristine O'Connell George -- A poem for Jesse / Sonia Sanchez -- To P.J. / Sonia Sanchez -- Valentine / Donald Hall -- Summer / W.D. Snodgrass -- Winter / W.D. Snodgrass -- The sun has a tail / Emanuel di Pasquale -- Knoxville, Tennessee / Nikki Giovanni -- I am cherry alive / Delmore Schwartz -- The tyger / William Blake -- Conversation with a mouse / Robert Bly -- On turning ten / Billy Collins -- How to stay up late / X.J. Kennedy -- Flashlight / X.J. Kennedy -- Maturity / X.J. Kennedy -- Wynken, Blynken, and Nod / Eugene Field -- Little / Dorothy Aldis -- Two in bed / Abram Bunn Ross -- Brother / Mary Ann Hoberman --- The land of counterpane / Robert Louis Stevenson -- from "The bed book" / Sylvia Plath -- The coming of teddy bears / Dennis Lee.