I spent weeks looking for quality contemporary poetry for children that was both appealing and appropriate; many childrens' collections and anthologies I encountered contained a lot of "classic" poetry that - while certainly of good quality - became difficult to read and explain to young students considering their often-dated language and cumbersome turns of phrase. "Poetry should be felt, not simply heard," I'd thought, but this is lost on many children who are still acquiring an understanding of the English language and may not be able to take any significant meaning away from the works of Crane and Dickinson. This was also where I had gone wrong; poetry can of course not even be "heard" by anyone silently scanning the page to themselves, be it in a classroom or at home or anywhere. It's difficult to "feel" poetry, too, when it's simply just read to you. This is about when I began paying mind to books like this one.

Hip Hop Speaks to Children is a collection of performance poetry by Nikki Giovanni and others, including popular artists like Mos Def, Queen Latifah, and Kanye West (don't worry, it's squeaky-clean). Following my flop reading selected poems by Stephen Crane to grade-schoolers one week, I brought in Hip Hop Speaks to Children and "rapped" to the kids about stories and concepts they could understand and relate to - from being creative to being alone to standing up for what you believe in. Granted, you won't encounter the beautiful word-weaving of many classic poets, but that's the point - Hip Hop Speaks to Children's wide range of appeal and easy-to-access language enables listeners to really start "feeling" poetry, and - if the presenter is brave enough (if not, an audio CD of many of the original artists performing their works - some with music - is included) - for the performer to feel it, too. Hip Hop Speaks to Children is good, clean fun with a purpose.