31 Days, 31 Lists: 2024 Poetry for Kids

Poetry. It ain’t just for April anymore.

In my experience poetry comes in waves. Some years the selections for kids are paltry. Other years, and I would count 2024 in this category, we are overwhelmed with a plethora of it. This year, I had my pick of the poetry and it allowed me to be a bit choosy. As a result, I’m delighted to show you some of the really top notch titles we got to see this year.

If you’d like today’s list in the form of a PDF, you may download it here.

Interested in previous years’ poetry? Then check out these beauties:

• 2023
• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016

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2024 Poetry for Kids

Animal Albums from A to Z by Cece Bell

Kick back and enjoy an ABC book like you’ve never heard it before. 26 albums by 26 different kinds of animals abound, so enjoy the silliness and sing along! This is something we’ve sort of seen before (and usually from Sandra Boynton) but I think it works better here than other places. Cece Bell has taken her immeasurable talents and her clear cut love of album covers and combined them into a heady mix of faux songs/poems. She kicks the whole thing off with an Introduction that gives a quickie history of albums created by animal musicians as background, and then we plunge into an abecedarian selection of 26 different types of music. Each album not only comes with a song (naturally the first one is “My Aromatic Armpit is Astonishing to All”) but also a beautifully illustrated album cover and a whole selection of other songs you’d be able to hear if you only had the album yourself (alas that we’ll never be able to hear “Accordion to My Abacus (The Answer Is Amor)”). There is, of course, a QR code to listen to actual musicians playing some of these songs, so you’ve that interactive element as well (or, if you prefer, you can just visit her YouTube channel). And as,with any collection, some of the songs/poems are stronger than others, but they’re all pretty darn fun to read out loud. I think my personal favorite is “Rhapsody for a Rogue Rodent” which contains the lines:

“She says, ‘No, no, no, no, no,

I gotta buck the status quo

I got to go, go, go, go, go

Back to my Twain and my public domain.”

Beware the Dragon and the Nozzlewock by Vikram Madan

Looking for funny poetry? You’ve come to the right place! From nozzlewocks to squishosaurs and everything in-between (whatever that means) you’ll be rolling in the aisles with this hilarious collection. Read through all 128 pages of this delightful collection and then look me in the eye and tell me that this isn’t some of the smartest, most inventive children’s poetry you’ve seen in a long time. It is SO easy to do boring poetry for kids and SO hard to write poetry half as funny as what Madan has come up with here. Funny and fabulously written, this is the poetry I wish we saw more often on our shelves. 

Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renée Watson, ill. Ekua Holmes

A robust, wonderful, incredible poetry collection for older readers recounting both Renée Watson’s own life and the lives of other Black girls and women everywhere. I don’t usually read works of poetry and get hit by the “Newbery contender” stick very often, but I guess today’s the day. This book is incredible. It carries more than a smattering of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf vibes. I particularly appreciated that there’s humor mixed in with the pretty serious subject matter. This isn’t just an empty rah-rah book. It’s packed full of brilliant pieces. Clearly, Ms. Watson needs to be churning out more poetry in the future. Extra Bonus: Love how short it is! We don’t need a tome to be touched. 

The Book of Whys by Gianna Rodari, ill. JooHee Yoon, translated by Antony Shugaar

Lest we get too far ahead of ourselves, I would like to say that though I have placed this book ostensibly in the “Poetry” section, you could probably justify putting it on any list from middle grade fiction to nonfiction and get away with it equally well. It’s one of those books that crosses genres so frequently that you’re in dire danger of getting a headache. Rodari is a big name in the Italian children’s book scene, but here in the States his moniker will mostly be met with blank stares. This particular book is a series of questions from kids that he would answer in his newspaper column (reminding me of another newspaper serial the Italians love – Pinocchio). But the true star of this show is Antony Shugaar who has the impossible task of having to not only translate into rhyme for many of these poems, but to make the jokes work (even the puns!) too. He can only do so much with the questions that are SO Italian they squeak (example: “Why do people say: ‘It’s like shampooing a donkey’s head’?”) but given what he has to work with the man has gone to Herculean lengths. Well done, sir!! Previously seen on the Translation List.

Climbing the Volcano: A Journey in Haiku by Curtis Manley, ill. Jennifer K. Mann

“how do you / climb a mountain? / one step at a time.” Told entirely in haiku, a boy and his family climb Oregon’s South sister volcano and experience nature along the way. You know a book’s good when you frantically flip to the author’s bookflap bio and try to suss out precisely what it is that they’ve written before. Or is that just me? Whatever the case, Manley’s the same guy who brought us THE RESCUER OF TINY CREATURES as well as JUST RIGHT: SEARCHING FOR THE GOLDILOCKS PLANET. He seems to alternate between fiction and nonfiction, and this book seems like the culmination of those two styles. Sometimes when an author uses haiku it can feel arbitrary, but I think using it in a book where an appreciation of nature just exudes from every page is clever. The change in temperature in this book really struck me as both realistic and interesting, and some of these poems are honestly lovely. “pumice desert- / crunching footsteps / drown out my thoughts.” Fantastic backmatter at the end too with info on the geology of the Cascade Mountain Range, what to bring to climb a mountain, info on the South Sister volcano, info on haiku, and even a list of the living things mentioned in the haiku. Oh, AND a beautiful Bibliography of both books and websites. This book has everything!

Goodnight, Starry Night by Joseph Coelho with Consultant Art Psychotherapist Mary Rose Brady, ill. Allison Colpoys

You gotta hand it to Coelho. When that man inundates America with his poetry he INUNDATES America with his poetry! I swear I’ve seen more Coelho titles this year than ever before, but out of all of them Goodnight, Starry Night has got to be my favorite. As he explains on the Table of Contents, “The works of art I have chosen in this book each made me feel relaxed, and inspired poems! May these poems help you sleep and dream…” What follows is a series of pieces of art with poems Joseph has created to accompany them. The poems are pretty nice, but it’s the pairing where the magic happens. I was much taken with the art selections, which sometimes are the same old, same old (the titular Starry Night, for example) while others were new to my eyes (like Space Walk, 2002, Yinka Shonibare CBE RA). There’s an interesting little section at the end by Mary Rose Brady on “The Science of Sleep” which tells you that, “this beautiful book has been carefully designed to facilitate the attuned, musical interaction between parent or caregiver and child.” Sure. Me, I just think they’re neat poems with neat art. There’s space enough for both, that’s for sure. 

Haiku, Ew!: Celebrating the Disgusting Side of Nature by Lynn Brunelle, ill. Julia Patton

Prepare yourself. In this book you’ll find a world filled with fish farts, bee barf, hagfish, lobster pee and more. Hilarious and fact-filled, don’t say I didn’t warn you. There’s nothing like a good gross book for kids. Each year I try to find my favorites amongst the disgusting titles and this year I think the honor falls upon this little amalgamation of nonfiction facts and poetry. Haiku in 2024 are hot, and, again, they all seem to understand that an appreciation of nature is vital. Of course, in this particular case, that would be an “appreciation” of the fact that flamingos poop on their own legs to cool them down. Brunelle appears to be having the time of her life, and Patton’s art manages to be gross but not too too gross. I mean, you don’t want readers actually retching or anything. We always need more funny poetry, and with its factual basis, what could be funnier than this?

Home by Isabelle Simler, translated by Vineet Lal

From lofty aeries, to straw apartment complexes, to a grassy lodge just big enough for a mouse, dive into these sumptuous images and fun poetry about all the different homes created by the architects of the natural world. Simler likes to mix her poetry with her factual information, and this time her focus is on animal homes. Her art has always been her greatest lure, looking as it does like scratchboard art when it’s actually digital. The difference with this book is that I don’t know if it’s the translation, but I feel like the poetry itself is particularly strong this time around. Like with the bowerbird poem that reads, “At the blue hour, I shall make my entrance / to steal the heart of my beloved.” Of course my sole objection to the book (and it’s not alone in this) is including the bowerbird’s nest in a book called Home, since technically bowerbirds don’t live in the nests that they decorate (thank you, last year’s You and the Bowerbird, for that fact). Previously seen on the Caldenott List.

The Mighty Pollinators by Helen Frost, ill. Rick Lieder

“Here come the pollinators, / small and mighty, / holding the world together.” Get up close and personal with the tiny critters that pollinate our world. Breathtaking photography coupled with beautiful verse. I mean, should we just reserve a permanent slot on our annual lists that says something like [Enter Helen Frost Poetry/Photography Book Here] or something along those lines? Who can compete with her when she pairs with Rick Lieder? No one, that’s who! As visual deep dives into pollination go, I dare say this has no equal. Lieder took the time to make sure that every bug in this book isn’t just showing its good side to the camera, but has copious specks of pollen on its body as well. And, bonus, the poetry itself is pretty darn good (no small thing). Nature at its most beautiful.  Previously seen on the Photography List.

The Mistakes That Made Us: Confessions from Twenty Poets selected by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, ill. Mercè López

Think of your most embarrassing moment or the mistake that seemed terrible at the time and turned out okay. Twenty poets relive their childhoods in a stellar collection of highs and lows. Oh, this is fun! And such a good idea, actually. Twenty points to Latham and Waters for breaking the poems up into categories. You have four of them: Oopsie-Daisy!, Stuff Happens, Blessings in Disguise, and What Have I Done? I was intrigued by the fact that you get a completely unrepentant skipping school poem in there, and really, with only one or two exceptions, this is a shockingly strong collection. Check out Linda Sue Park’s if you can read only one. Some of these are going to stick with me for a long time, like “Dare” by George Ella Lyon, “Silent” by Kim Rogers, and my personal favorite “Tough Loss” by Charles Waters. That one’s gonna hit you where it hurts. Absolutely love this collection. 

Natura by María José Ferrada, ill. Mariana Alcántara, translated by Kit Maude

Get out your flashlight and try to spot the plants, animals, insects, and birds hiding on these pages. Beautiful art mixes with a love of nature alongside bilingual verses. Oo! This one is fascinating. To really get the gist of it, you have to take a flashlight (or, more likely these days, a flashlight app) and hold it behind the pages to reveal the animals there. The poetry is nice, it’s bilingual (how many poetry books can claim that?), and there’s an almost seek-and-find aspect to finding the insects and other creatures hidden on these pages. I find it lovely and also intriguing and fun for kids (a bonus!)

Poetry Comics by Grant Snider

What is a poetry comic? “words and pictures / drawn in panels / where time passes / and feelings happen.” Let this all-new way of discovering poetry be the bridge for your comic-loving kids. As some of you may recall, 2023 was a lamentable poetry year. When 2024 began, I knew we were in a better poetry position when this book kidcked everything off with this marvelous combination of poetry and comics. There’s so much potential with a book like this one! If kids love comics and they have to read poetry, why not at least give them poetry in a format they already enjoy? Plus I rather like these poems themselves. They’re sweet, sometimes clever, and often inventive with the form. A grand introduction to poetry presented in a visual manner. And, with its comic format, pair it with the aforementioned Beware the Dragon and the Nozzlewock.

‘Tis the Season by Richard Jones

Okay okay okay okay okay. I am VERY excited to tell you about this book. And I do so out of a place where I was 100% not on board with its premise. I mean, really? A “lift-the-flap Advent Calendar full of Christmas poems”? Sounds like spinach for dinner, folks. Plus how effective would this really be? How many times could you use it? And what about the poems themselves? Are they gonna be a bunch of awful ones by a bunch of dead white people? Sorry, I’ve been burned before, and that is why the magnificence that is this book truly took me unawares. Let’s tackle those concerns I had one-by-one, shall we? First up, the design. A lovely red ribbons allows you to tie the book closed for those times of year when you no longer need it. Open it up and it’s an accordion book that can open up to stand by itself on a mantle or table or what have you. The pages are thick, like you’d find in a board book. Each day has a poem and each poem has a flap that reveals something that applies to the poem. The poems themselves? You’ve got your classics (“The north wind doth blow” and all that). You’ve got your humor (Ogden Nash!). You’ve got your variety (Saijo Yao WITH a credited translator, the late great Nikki Giovanni, etc.). And then on top of all of that you’ve the art of Richard Jones who not only illustrated everything above and under those dang flaps BUT on the opposite side of the accordion pages are these huge, beautiful wintertime images. Boy oh boy, if you ever wanted something Adventy in your home, find this and grab it now before it’s gone. This is a keeper. 

Windsongs: Poems About Weather by Douglas Florian

Whether it’s twisty tornadoes, arid deserts, flooded homes, or rainy days, there’s a poem somewhere in here for everyone everywhere. Catch wind of it!  Well, I’ll be darned if this book isn’t pretty darn great! The science is good. The poems scan perfectly. There were even ideas in here that made perfect sense but that I’d never seen before (like when “Weather Instruments” rhymes thermometer, barometer, hygrometer, and anemometer). I’m a fan!

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So with all that in mind, here are the other lists for 2024:

December 1 – Great Board Books

December 2 – Picture Book Readalouds

December 3 – Simple Picture Book Texts

December 4 – Transcendent Holiday Picture Books

December 5 – Rhyming Picture Books

December 6 – Funny Picture Books

December 7 – CaldeNotts

December 8 – Picture Book Reprints

December 9 – Bilingual Books for Kids

December 10 – Math Books for Kids

December 11 – Books with a Message / Social Emotional Learning

December 12 – Fabulous Photography

December 13 – Translated Picture Books

December 14 – Fairy Tales / Folktales / Religious Tales

December 15 – Wordless Picture Books

December 16 – Poetry Books

December 17 – Unconventional Children’s Books

December 18 – Easy Books & Early Chapter Books

December 19 – Comics & Graphic Novels

December 20 – Older Funny Books

December 21 – Science Fiction Books

December 22 – Fantasy Books

December 23 – Informational Fiction

December 24 – Gross Books

December 25 – Science & Nature Books

December 26 – Unique Biographies

December 27 – Blueberry Award Contenders (Celebrating the Environment)

December 28 – Nonfiction Picture Books

December 29 – Nonfiction Books for Older Readers

December 30 – Middle Grade Novels

December 31 – Picture Books

Filed under: 31 Days 31 Lists, Best Books, Best Books of 2024