Hey parents - why not give your offspring a break from all that TV brain candy? Let's face it, how much Powerpuff Girls, Pokemon and Angela Anaconda with lashings of Neighbours, Sabrina and Planet Pop can one young brain take in before it closes down and goes ka-boom? Here's the poetry alternative you've been waiting for.
With the Barney set, you should try My First Oxford Book of Poems, edited by John Foster (Oxford, £12.99 in UK). It's got a washable surface under the dust jacket and every page is decorated with bright, bouncy colour illustrations. Any anthology which includes "Winter" by Shakespeare - "When icicles hang by the wall" - gets the thumbs-up from me, and there are loads of great poems to read out loud here, including "January" by John Updike: "The sky is low./ The wind is gray. /The radiator/Purrs all day."
When I saw the subtitle of In Every Tiny Grain of Sand a Child's Book of Prayers and Praise collected by Reeve Lindbergh (Walker, £12.99 in UK), I thought, "uh-oh; happy-clappy alert!" But I slapped my wrist for being profane and turned the pages with a growing sense of revelation. Wow - what a book! There are Navajo prayers, pieces by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Jewish prayers, Ecclesiastes ("One generation passes away,/and another generation comes:/But the earth abides forever . . . ").
It's a thoughtful gathering: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills/from whence cometh my help . . . " (Psalm 121); "I feel the suffering of millions./ And yet, when I look up at the sky,/ I somehow feel that everything will change/ for the better . . . " (Anne Frank), "I believe a leaf of grass is no less/ than the journey-work of stars . . . " (Walt Whitman). Each page has gorgeous, atmospheric illustrations. As winter comes in, we should all keep in mind what Pope Pius XII said, "Feeding the birds/is also a form of prayer . . . " Get out those peanuts.
I tend to think that a little bit of nonsense verse goes a really long way. But I Never Saw a Purple Cow, edited by Emma Chichester Clark (Walker, £4.99 in UK), drew chuckles when "Algy Met a Bear" - "Algy met a bear,/A bear met Algy./The bear was bulgy,/ The bulge was Algy". "The Quangle Wangle's Hat" by Edward Lear is extremely wacky - "On top of the Crumpetty Tree/ The Quangle Wangle sat,/ But his face you could not see,/On account of his Beaver Hat . . . ". And there are lots of weirdly wonderful limericks - "A funny old person of Slough/Took all of his meals with a cow./He said, `It's uncanny,/ She's so like Aunt Fanny!'/But he never would indicate how."
If we move up the age bracket, say to the Goof Troop, Tweenies and Boy Meets World brigade, the selection of poetry pans out to try and compete with television. Pet-crazed, animal-loving kids should acquire The Thursday Club (Dolphin Paperback, £3.99 in UK) by the always-reliable Gordon Snell. "The Sloth's Snooze", "The Dodo's Ode" and "The Star-Struck Horse" are some of the lively beasts trotting through this enjoyably nutty and hugely entertaining kingdom. "The Llama's Holiday " is one example of these pacy fourlegged tales - "A bunch of adventurous llamas/Dressed up in bright coloured pyjamas/And set off one night/On a holiday flight/To a beach in the balmy Bahamas . . . "
I like the way Valerie Bloom isn't afraid to write quiet poems for children. The poems in The World is Sweet by Valerie Bloom (Bloomsbury, £6.99 in UK), are labelled correctly. Her thoughtful poems are sometimes written in a Jamaican dialect ("Ah goin' to live in de forest,/Just meself an' me,/Ah goin' to run away when it get light,/Just you wait an' see."). "How to Ask for a Hamster", "Sandwich", "Silence" and "I Hope Tomorrow Never Comes" ("I don't want to leave today,/Don't want to go tomorrow,/Has anyone got some extra hours?/ I want a few to borrow . . . ") are perfect for stimulating those lazy brain cells. A glossary is included to guide us northern-dwellers.
Shades of Green, edited by Anne Harvey (Red Fox, £4.99 in UK) is a great anthology for kids who care about the natural world. But as well as a poetry bank which recycles wise voices (Edward Thomas, Philip Larkin, Stevie Smith, Pablo Neruda), it also keeps an eco-friendly smile on its face with poems like "Song of the Open Road" by Ogden Nash, ("I think that I shall never see/A billboard lovely as a tree,/Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,/ I'll never see a tree at all").
Children of Ireland: zap off those TV sets, pick up some poetry, you have nothing to lose but your remote controls!
Julie O'Callaghan is a poet