Customer Reviews

How to Eat a Poem: A Smorgasbord of Tasty and Delicious Poems for Young Readers (Dover Children's Classics)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Poetry in the schools is certainly facing some challenges right now. How to eat a Poem attempts to widen the poetic cannon, but fails short on several accounts. Many of the poems are seen in my literary texts, stale and boring. I was hoping for some really new, fresh poems, and on a few accounts I did. The thematic arrangement of the poems was quite enjoyable and it allowed many of the poems to converse with one another, and in so doing, inspired a number of creative writing exercises for my bag of tricks. Overall, I would recommend the book if you're willing to work with it and tweak it for classroom use.

The poem selections are very good and the subject categories are very helpful as well.

My daughters 8 and 9 loved raeding the book. Thye would read it out to each other. They both used it for school. I loved it!

I was led to believe that this book was intended to inspire young readed and spur their interest in poetry. After reading it I can only say that it was a disappointment. I don't believe the editors have the slightest idea what young people are interested in reading. There are a few exceptions that give the collection some redemption, but overall I doubt that youngsters will be anything but bored.

No doubt the poems will last longer than the binding. The cover came off my copy as soon as I took it out of the package. Dover specializes in inexpensive editions, but this was a new experience for me. The book will not survive in a classroom.