10 of the most classic children’s rhymes – selected by Dr Oliver Tearle For most of us, nursery rhymes are the first poems we ever encounter in life. They can teach us about rhythm, and about constructing a story in verse, and, occasionally, they impart important moral lessons to us. […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) A ‘hymn’ is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as, variously, ‘a song of praise to God’, ‘any composition in praise of God which is adapted to be chanted or sung’, and ‘an ode or song of praise in honour of a deity, a […]
Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle Ever since the Victorians, fantasy fiction has been a huge part of children’s literature. Indeed, classic fantasy novels for children actually emerged some time before serious fantasy literature for adults – modern fantasy, at least – became popular. In this post, we introduce 12 must-read […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Until now, we’ve largely been concerned with selecting some of the best poems by famous poets – everyone from Shakespeare to Seamus Heaney, Coleridge to Carol Ann Duffy. But since Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, after literary critics […]
The Oxford Book of Scatological Poems is yet to be compiled; how much of a market there’d be for it, in any case, remains a matter of doubt. Nevertheless, it’s true that poems aren’t always about roses and beauty; sometimes they’re about poo. Below we’ve gathered together ten of the […]