Teaching & Learning
Teachers at all levels will find countless ways to integrate the Prelutsky Collection into their curricula. We hope this catalog will inspire you to launch new conversations, look for poetry in unexpected places, and listen to children. Reflections by contemporary poets are interspersed throughout the catalog to expand discussion and spark ideas. The Western Libraries Children and Teen Poetry Collections are searchable through the Western Washington University Libraries online catalog. Library staff welcome conversations about how to bring these and other materials into the classroom.
Vast as it is, the Prelutsky Collection contains few periodicals, which are among the major places where children’s poetry was historically published. Educators and researchers may wish to consult online resources to access these publications. Western Libraries and many other academic libraries subscribe to the American Antiquarian Society’s American Historical Periodicals database. In addition, a growing number of publications are freely available online through sites such as the Hathi Trust Digital Library and Google Books. These resources contain major periodicals such as The Juvenile Miscellany, The Youth’s Companion, and St. Nicholas magazine. Before the mid-twentieth century, mainstream publishers printed very little poetry by people of color; instead, it tended to appear in periodicals. W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Brownies’ Book: A Monthly Magazine for People of the Sun is a good example. Other poems were printed in newspapers, either for general audiences or specific groups. Thirteen-year-old Phillis Wheatley’s first published poem, for instance, is found in the December 21, 1767, issue of the Newport Mercury. Some periodicals were short-lived but historically significant, such as La Edad de Oro (The Golden Age). Published in 1889 by Cuban exile José Marti and dedicated to the children of the Americas, only four issues were ever printed. Newspapers and magazines are also an important source of poetry by anonymous authors, many (perhaps most) of whom were women. In short, periodicals are an important part of the study of historical children’s poetry and should not be overlooked.
Selected Resources
Alexander, Kwame, and Deanna Nikaido. How to Write a Poem. Illustrated by Melisssa Sweet. Quill Tree Books, 2023.
American Antiquarian Society. Collections: Children’s Literature. https://www.americanantiquarian.org/childrens-literature
Cushman, Stephen. The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms. Edited by Roland Greene. 3rd ed., Princeton University Press, 2016.
Engle, Margarita, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Jacqueline Woodson, editors. Poetry Magazine: Young People’s Poetry, vol. 217, no. 6, March 2021.
Giovanni, Nikki, Tony Medina, Willie Perdomo, and Michele Scott, editors. Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat. Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, 2008.
Harjo, Joy, LeAnne Howe, and Jennifer Elise Foerster, editors. When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. Norton & Company, 2020.
Nel, Philip, Lissa Paul, and Nina Christensen, editors. Keywords for Children’s Literature. 2nd ed., New York University Press, 2021.
Townsend, John Rowe. Written for Children: An Outline of English-Language Children’s Literature. 6th American ed. Scarecrow Press, 1996.
Vardell, Sylvia, and Janet Wong. Poetry Friday Anthology Series. Pomelo Press.
Vecchione, Patrice, and Alyssa Raymond, editors. Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience. Seven Stories Press, 2019.
National Youth Poetry Awards, Appointments, and Honors
Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award is presented annually to an American poet or anthologist for the most outstanding new book of poetry for children published in the previous calendar year.
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) established the Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children in 1977 to honor a living American poet for their aggregate work for children ages 3-13.
National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature is an initiative of the Library of Congress. The Ambassador raises national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature as it relates to lifelong literacy, education and the development and betterment of the lives of young people.
National Youth Poet Laureate Program is an initiative of Urban Word – the largest and most comprehensive youth literary arts organization in the country – in collaboration with local arts and literary organizations, Arts Councils and library systems.
Poetry Foundation Young People’s Poet Laureate is awarded every two years to a living writer in recognition of a career devoted to writing exceptional poetry for young readers. The laureate advises the Poetry Foundation on matters relating to young people’s literature and may engage in a variety of projects to help instill a lifelong love of poetry among the nation’s developing readers.