Author: Compiled by Michael Harrison and Christopher Stuart-Clark
Title: The Oxford Book of Story Poems
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2006

Grade Level: 4th grade & up Summary: A collection of story poems.

Strengths: This is a diverse and complete collection of story poems. Poems range from Edgar Allen Poe to Edward Lear to Lewis Carroll. This book is full of adventure poems, Biblically based poems, and poems about princes and princesses. It is a great resource and anthology of poetry.

Concerns: This poetry anthology is certainly not meant for younger audiences. The difficulty of the poetry as well as the content matter makes this anthology suited for older audiences only. Even then, this book may be best used as a read aloud resource, as even older students may struggle with the poetry.

Classroom Use: This book would be used most appropriately as a read aloud. It would be a great resource to have in the classroom for children to explore different types of poetry and to challenge more proficient readers. (image from Amazon.com)