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Children's Poetry and Nursery Rhymes

"Introduction," p. 127 

   1.  What does Sheree Fitch mean when she says that early "readers" are not readers at all?

   2.  What makes reading and discussing poetry "an exercise in humiliation" for many students?

"The Nursery Rhymes of Mother Goose:  A World without Glasses," p. 129

1.  Why does Nodelman say that there's uncertainty about how much Mother Goose wrote?

2.  Why haven't scholars been able to identify the authors of many nursery rhymes?

3.  How does Nodelman feel about the hidden meaning of nursery rhymes?

4.  What qualities makes nursery rhymes memorable?

5.  Nodelman contends that nursery rhymes "offer their young hearers an introduction to the main pleasure of poetry - indeed, of all literature."  What is that pleasure?

" 'From the Best Poets'?:  How the Canon of Poetry for Children is Constructed" p. 147

   1.  What kinds of poetry did Patmore exclude from his anthology in 1862?   

   2.  What kind of poetry did he include?    

   3.  What does Styles say is the problem of choosing poetry to "please children"?

   4.  Why did publishers of children's anthologies in the eighteenth century want to include 
        poetry that pleased children?

   5.  What kinds of poets are included in anthologies for children?