Land of Play: Verses, Rhymes, Stories

Here is a world where a child can sail to foreign lands before breakfast, where the backyard becomes a kingdom, and where every ordinary moment crackles with possibility. This anthology gathers the poems and stories that have delighted generations of young readers, featuring verse from Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, and other masters who understood that childhood is its own country, one worth celebrating rather than outgrowing. The collection moves from rollicking adventure poems that send children hieing away to enchanted realms, to quieter tales of imaginative play and family life. There is something timeless about the pleasures gathered here: the thrill of make-believe, the comfort of familiar rhymes, the way a well-chosen poem can make a child feel seen. Originally compiled in 1926, this volume carries the particular warmth of an era that still believed in the sacred importance of play. Whether read aloud at bedtime or discovered by a child browsing a dusty shelf, these verses retain their power to transform an ordinary afternoon into an expedition, a treasure hunt, a story worth telling.