Our Selectors

The Children's Poetry Bookshelf Selectors are experts with many years' experience in the field of children's poetry. They bring both great knowledge and enormous enthusiasm to their task.

The way it works is that the publishers submit their new children's poetry books to the CPB and the Selectors choose the best of the new books for the Choices, and the backlist titles to put in our wider selection.

Mandy Coe

Mandy Coe's poetry has been broadcast on BBC radio and television and has won a number of awards, including a Hawthornden Fellowship . She has published two poetry collections, Pinning the Tail on the Donkey and The Weight of Cows, and Red Shoes, a graphic novel exploring issues of discrimination. Her work for children appears in anthologies from Hodder, Wayland, Oxford University Press, Pearson Education and Bloomsbury. With Jean Sprackland she is the author of Our thoughts are bees: Writers Working with Schools.

Mandy has read her work at poetry venues across the UK. She delivers INSET training, and workshops for young people and adults in art galleries, museums and schools. As well as being a CPB Selector, Mandy is also our educational expert and writes the activity sheets which are sent to teachers.

Wes Magee

Wes is our longest-serving Selector. A former teacher, he is a well-known children's poet who has written over 70 books and has been writing for over 20 years. He takes his lively Poetry Show to 50 to 60 schools every year, where he entertains large numbers of children with his strongly rhythmic and child-centred poetry. It's a treat to see the children taking part in one of his highly enjoyable events.

Wes's most recent books are The Boneyard Rap and The Very Best of Wes Magee. He has recently recorded a 60 minute CD for the Poetry Archive. He is under no illusions about a poet's life: 'Poetry is two four-letter words... hard work!' is his comment.

Fiona Waters

Our third Selector, Fiona Waters, is well-known and widely admired in the children's book world for her vast knowledge of poetry and of children's reading tastes. An ex-children's bookseller and publisher, she has for many years been responsible for choosing books for book fairs in schools and is currently the Editorial Director of Troubadour, The Travelling Book Company. She is a great enthusiast and supporter of poetry.

School Librarian called Fiona 'one of the best anthologists there are' and her many collections have had long-running sales. Her most recent anthologies are Best Friends, Poems Then and Now and Why does my Mum always Iron a Crease in my Jeans, and she is the editor of 34 children's poetry collections and author of 50 other books.