1 h 3 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A bed becomes a country, a garden becomes an ocean, and childhood opens its eyes.
In A Child's Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson sees the world from a pillow, a nursery floor and a small chair. These short poems explore bedtime, shadows, rain and play through a child's eyes. Ordinary things become places of adventure, while the rules of grown-ups can seem strange from down below.
In The Land of Counterpane, toy soldiers and ships fill a sick child's bed, and folded blankets become hills and bays. Pirate Story turns play into a voyage of imagined danger. Rain looks out at fields, umbrellas and ships. Clear rhymes and steady rhythms make these small worlds a pleasure to speak aloud.
What you’ll discover
- A country of bedclothes Explore the hills and bays a child discovers among the folds of a sickbed.
- Adventure close to home Follow children whose games bring sailors and the dangers of the sea into familiar places.
- Rules with a wink Meet the manners adults expect in the brief, playful Whole Duty of Children.
- Rain across the world Notice how a simple shower connects fields, umbrellas and ships in one cheerful poem.
- Rhymes worth saying aloud Enjoy short quatrains and couplets whose clear sounds and steady beat stay in the ear.
Who will love it
For parents and grandparents who love reading aloud, teachers, and anyone who enjoys simple verse with a clear ear for rhythm. These poems also welcome adults who like to remember their own childhood, with its games, bedtime rituals and everyday wonders.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A grown man remembers being small
- The sickroom becomes a whole country
- Play turns ordinary things into worlds
- The grown-up world seen from below
- Weather, seasons and moving scenery
- Simple forms, strong sound, a look back
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- 1 h 3 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
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- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Ein Kinder-Garten voller Verse
by Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885
A child's bed becomes a battlefield, a garden becomes a sea, and ordinary things open into worlds of play.
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In short
A Child's Garden of Verses is a book of short poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1885. Stevenson was a Scottish writer, already known for adventure stories, and he wrote these poems while he was often ill and spending long hours in bed or in quiet rooms.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A grown man remembers being small
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850 and was a sickly child. Fevers and coughs kept him in bed for long stretches, and he grew up with a vivid inner life. He later became famous for Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but this book began in a quieter mood.
He wrote most of the poems in his thirties, while living in England and fighting poor health. Looking back, he found that the child he had been was still close by. The poems are told in the voice of a child, yet they are clearly shaped by an adult who has a skilled hand with rhyme and meter.
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What is A Child's Garden of Verses about?
It is a collection of short poems about childhood, written by Robert Louis Stevenson. The poems cover bedtime, play, shadows, boats, rain, trains and the way a child sees the grown-up world.
When was A Child's Garden of Verses written and published?
Stevenson wrote the poems in the early to mid 1880s, while often ill, and the book was first published in 1885. It is a collection of original poems, not a true story.
Who is the book dedicated to?
It is dedicated to Alison Cunningham, Stevenson's childhood nurse, whom he called Cummy. She cared for him through long illnesses, and the poems look back with thanks on those years.
The author
Robert Louis Stevenson
1850–1894 · Scottish novelist and poet
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist and poet, born in Edinburgh in 1850. He wrote Treasure Island (1883), A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), and Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). He settled in Samoa in 1890 and died there in 1894.
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