The world of children's poetry is as diverse and as miraculous as the human imagination itself, a land where owls and pussy-cats set to sea in beautiful pea-green boats, and tigers burn bright in the forests of the night. It embraces word play, parody, nonsense, lullaby, and elegy, and ranges from brief nursery rhymes to long narratives. It can be utterly silly, but it also recognizes that if children's lives are full of wonder and delight, they are also fraught with worries, disappointments, and moments of sadness. The best children's poets come to terms with grief as well as joy. Now, in...