The Nation's Favourite Children's Poems

The Nation's Favourite Poems

by Spike Milligan (Reading), Rosalind Shanks

This collection contains verses written for children's enjoyment.

Genres: Poetry

2 pages, Audio CD

First published August 28, 2001

About the author

Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan, known as Spike, was a comedian, writer and musician. He was of Irish descent, but spent most of his childhood in India and lived most of his later life in England, moving to Australia after retirement. He is famous for his work in The Goon Show, children's poetry and a series of comical autobiographical novels about his experiences serving in the British Army in WWII. Spike Milligan suffered from bipolar disorder, which led to depression and frequent breakdowns, but he will be remembered as a comic genius. His tombstone reads 'I told you I was ill' in Gaelic.

Reviews

[Sophie Crane]

A Great book by Milligan as expected!

[Hollie]

I am not a massive poetry reader so I have got this book to ensure that I read poetry with my class. There are lots and lots of different poems inside and some that I really like!

[Tim Esas]

Most anthologies are never consistently good so this was a nice surprise. Plus I found a bunch of poets I hadn't read before and now I need to go get all their books.

[Sucharita]

Lovely poems.

[Katie]

This is a great collection of poems. I read it to my son after being told by countless baby books and websites that it is 'v.important to read to your child everyday', great sentiment, but when your baby has the attention span of, well, a child, it can be challenging to read anything longer than a sentence. Poems are perfect - he liked the rhythm and I could read just one or two at a time. A couple that stick in my mind are 'The Hippopotamus Song' by Michael Flanders (sing loudly - Mud, Mud, glorious Mud!) and 'I Saw a Jolly Hunter' by Charles Causley which would probably be banned nowadays for being unPC.

[Anna of Mleczna River]

I enjoyed reading the poems, so craftly written, so neatly organized. The world of childrens' dreams and fears beautifully captured in the form of words - a must-read!