A Poem for Every Night of the Year: A beautiful poetry collection for the whole family to share

I saw this book in Waterstones and instantly fell in love with it. Cheaper and delivered to the door made my choice of purchase obvious. This book comes before the partner book "A Poem for every day of the Year". The book is, in the main, child friendly (maybe 7+) , but prepare for lots of conversations for some of them and they're probably more read to children rather than read by them. Lovely range of silliness to quite serious topics from a broad spectrum of poets meaning you can expose yourself and your children to appropriate poetry choices that you may never have read before. The book is a lovely reminder of the importance of poetry and challenging language experienced by children growing up. Having a poem a day means that you can always get some guidance for what to read. There are very well and simply written introductory paragraphs for each daily entry that help provide context for the choice. Open a page and you get a wash of contentedness having read the choice for the evening. A great pre-bed read to delve into and explore whatever the date.

As a child I had a book like this, something I read before I went to sleep every night. I never missed a night for years. So when I saw this my heart leapt. This is a book of poems marketed at children, but the selection is suitable for everyone and includes work by Shakespeare, Keats, Blake and Benjamin Zephaniah. I particularly like how the poetry matches with the seasons and days such as All Fools' Day, May Day, as well as Christmas and Easter, and historical anniversaries such as the Battle of Hastings, Rosa Parks and El Alamein. The Book is divided into months with an illustration of an oak tree as it changes through the year with a leaf for each page number. Illustrations are by Zanna Goldhawk. The whole book is beautiful. For children there poems that will show them the natural order of the year as well as great poets such as Wilfred Own and Siegfried Sassoon that will enhance the growing mind. many of my favourite poets are here. The selection is well thought out and anyone would love to have this on their bookshelf. Totally adore this highly respected book and will endeavour to read it every night.

I love this book, I look forward every night to read the poems of the day and Im learning a lot about poetry. I definitely recommend it and will be looking to buy the other one for next year.

A Poem for Every Night of the Year is an attractive book with a mostly superb range of poems, some well-known, some not. The type face is clear - sharp black print - and in a larger font size than usual. This makes it easier to read than some poetry books with their 'artistic' small pale grey print which you'd need a magnifying glass to read. Allie Esiri clearly loves poetry: all shapes, all subjects and all forms. This is a children's book but because of its eclectic selection, will be enjoyed by many adults. My only criticism (and it's a serious one) is that the 'introductions' which have been written for each poem, placed immediately after the title, often derail or upstage the poem. Some, such as that for Against Idleness and Mischief, page 114, This is just to say, page 204, The Eagle, page 216, and The Listeners, page 292, are just crass, whereas a few others are genuinely helpful: Einstein's Brain, page 243, A Poison Tree, page 299, and Tichborne's Elegy, page 360. The excuse for this intrusion into the world of the poem must be to make the poems easier to understand by younger readers. For me, such explanatory notes would have worked better at the end of each poem. Children deserve better. The beautiful cover illustration is by Zanna Goldhawk.

This book is ace. I saw it in the kids section of Waterstones so I guess it's meant for kids but it's really a book of very lovely poems suitable for adults or kids. Personally my 6 year old kids will listen to a two minute poem whatever it is especially if it's a nightly routine kind of treat. Hopefully this will open their minds to poetry for the future and a plus side is that I get to read poems I wouldn't have known of or known well or had the gumption to have found out. The intro to the poems are a lovely touch too and add to the whole experience. And it has a beautiful cover. I'm thinking of giving their teacher a copy as a end of year present.

This is an adorable book! I bought it to have a poem a day but it ended up that my daughter told me on New Years Day she wanted to read it with me every night. My little bookworm loves to attend poetry readings with me and she actually reads the poems to me every night. Yes, yes, I know it is ONLY a week into the New Year and it might not last (kinda like resolutions) but for now we are both really enjoying reading it. We sit and discuss poems we read together, always have, but recently she is seeing deeper than the face value of the words and one poem, the name of which escapes me at the moment, after dissecting it for about 5 minutes she looked at me and says, “It is a riddle!” I looked at her rather confused and asked her “what is a riddle?” to which she stood and stared me straight in the eyes, raised her arms and waved them in circles then declared “LIFE!!!” I ended up reading the poem to myself and thought how right she had gotten it so when she saw this book and asked to read it at night with me I jumped at the chance to have her join me. The reason I want to talk about this collection of poetry now rather than when we finish reading it is because I want you to grab a copy! I have gone through the contents page and to be quite honest it is a really well put together collection. They are season/holiday appropriate and it is just lovely!!

I bought this book during our first covid lockdown and it helped me being so restricted day by day. I found old poems I did in my school days and some fabulous new modern ones so well written and humerous they made me crack out loud. I had never Roal Dhal poetry and loved his wicked sense of humour and Loved Benjamin Zephanire's Turkey. My overall favourite was the Battle of Hastings brilliant stuff so well crafted it makes me feel I want to write poetry too.

This is a lovely book. Great for yourself or for a gift. There is a poem for every day of the year. The idea is that you read the poem for each day. It’s well set out and has a lovely cover. Great for a gift or for yourself. Read just before sleep. A nice big of mindfulness.