Running lightly . . . Poems for Young People, selected and introduced by Tom Mullins (Mercier Press, £7.99

This is a most attractive collection of poems, divided into sections with appealing names such as "Safe and Warm", "Out on the Edge" and "Words at Play". There is also a section of poems provided by Irish schoolchildren, "Young Voices", on a variety of lyrical and uncontroversial topics such as looking out at the rain or magical white horses. Tom Mullins shows an awareness of his audience by referring to them as "young people" and not "children" - but in any case the poems here are aimed strictly at the pre-teens, so there's hardly a pouty face in sight. It is also, it seems to me, a valuable store of bits and bobs of the sort of doggerel which babies and toddlers adore.