Poems of Childhood

By Michael Morpurgo and Gaby Morgan

A child’s life should be full of poems, rhymes and songs, and Poems of Childhood is a celebration of that.

Part of the Macmillan Collectors Library series, featuring expert introductions for your favourite classics. This edition features an introduction by acclaimed children's writer, Michael Morpurgo.

Poems of Childhood combines the best of classic children’s poetry into one anthology featuring a rich range of themes – from animals to nursery rhymes, from nonsense poems to magic. Many favourites are here, including ‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’, ‘Jabberwocky’ and ‘The Tyger’. This delightful collection is the perfect gift for children and a chance for adults to revisit their favourite verse from the likes of Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Oct 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781529013207

Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo OBE is one of Britain's best loved writers for children, with sales of over 35 million copies. He has written over 150 books, has served as Children’s Laureate, and has won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize, the Writers Guild Award, the Whitbread Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Eleanor Farjeon Lifetime Achievement Award. With his wife, Clare, he is the co-founder of Farms for City Children. Michael was knighted in 2018 for services to literature and charity.

Book preview

CHILDHOOD

ANIMALS

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!’

Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!

How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?’

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his