Picture Book #6

Author:  Liz Garton Scanlon
Title: All the World
Illustrator:  Marla Frazee
Readability score:  Grade 1 to Grade 3
Genre:  Poetry
Subgenre:  N/A
Theme:  Everyone makes the world the special place that it is.
Primary and secondary characters:  Little boy and girl, family
Awards: 2010 Caldecott Honor Book
Date of Publication:  2009
Publishing Company:  Beach Lane Books
ISBN number:  978-1-4169-8580-8

This poem, "All the World" gives us a look into the day of a family that leaves on the coast.  The little boy and girl play at the beach.  They visit a garden and a vegetable stand.  They  climb a tree and get caught in the rain.  They go to a restaurant and come home for the night, where they play music and visit with family and friends.  The poem ends by saying that the world is everyone and everything.

This beautifully illustrated book would be a great introductory book to a lesson on poetry for early elementary school children.  It has clear rhyming patterns and a definite theme that the students could easily understand.  I would read the book aloud to the students in a literature circle and then have a grand conversation about it before moving into instruction on poetry.  This book is made up of a single,  multiple stanza poem.  I would initiate a conversation about the poem by asking the students what genre the book would be categorized by.  Then, I would ask, "How do we know this is a poem?"  "What words or phrases give us a clue?"  "What is the theme or moral of the poem?"  "Why do you think the author wrote this poem?" Then, I would instruct the students on poetry and have them write their own "I Am" poem, in which they write about themselves.