Analysis of Caroline Kennedy's A Family of Poems anthology

Children's Poetry

The book is entitled a Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children written by Caroline Kennedy and illustrated by John J. Muth using watercolors. It is a collection of beautiful poems by the Kennedy family. The 7 15/16 X 10 book has 144 pages, containing more than a hundred poems from the different parts of the world. It is a hardbound and picture book published by Hyperion/Hyperion Books for Children in New York on September 15, 2005. The illustration of the front cover depicts a little girl reading to her teddy bear in a bedroom. The book is sold at $19.95 in the United States as well as in the internet.

The book may contain simple language which makes it readable for kindergarten students who are fluent readers, but emergent readers may need the guidance of their teachers, parents, or other adults to help them read the book because of the relatively small font size and few illustrations per page. Children may find the book interesting because of the external and internal rhyme schemes as well as repetitions found in the book which usually characterize children's poetry so that they may easily appreciate the poems and join in during poetry reading. Joining in helps them develop or enhance their linguistic abilities. It also fosters their language development. The poems are categorized according to the topics like self, animals, seasons, seashore, bedtime, and adventure which can become a springboard for introducing certain topics. This way, the book becomes ideal for a thematic curriculum. It also contains foreign and classic poems like Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer Day" which may help children appreciates poetry at an early age.