Review by penny (2007-03-15)
I picked this book up at a thrift store. It has been read and re-read over the years. Because the language is "old school", it has generated alot of spirited conversation in the house. I have sons that enjoyed bedtime readings when younger. This was a favorite of both sides. As they grew they used and still use some of the different vocabulary learned.

One son used the poem "A Chant Out of Doors", by Marguerite Wilkinson as part of his Boy Scout Eagle Court of Honor. My niece, a fairy fiend, poured over the poems and illustrations, which are inked and charming. This book has met many needs and passed thru many family hands providing hours and hours of enjoyment.

Review by spiphany (2004-05-04)
This was one of less than half-a-dozen poetry books in our house when I was a child, and I suspect it has something to do with why for a long time I never liked poetry. Most of the poems in this collection are quite good in themselves (probably better than I tend to give them credit for), but so much of poetry depends on context, and the way the poems are presented leaves them feeling rather insipid and somehow steals some of the magic from them.

Take for example this poem by Frances Shaw:
Who loves the rain
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
Him will I follow through the storm;
And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes.

The poem is quite nice; but it is prefaced with the following remarks: "There are a great many kinds of people in the world and thay do not all like the same things. Some people enjoy stormy weather and other like the quiet rainy days when one may stay indoors and read or play. We all like the kind of person in this poem who is not frightened or excited in time of trouble...". Is that really necessary? And the lack of variety in the collection - most of the poems are either fanciful fairy stories or pastoral/domestic type poems - tends to make the poems seem collectively rather flat, because whatever is stirring or passionate in them is minimized. It ends up feeling like too much of the same, even though this isn't really to case. Some nice poems in here, they just need to be treated a bit differently.