Come to the Great World, Poems from Around the Globe

This is a collection of beautiful poetry written by children from all around the world. Some poems followed a rhyming pattern, while others were lengthier using descriptive language. All of the poetry expressed an individual joy or experiences that come from their lives and their lifestyles, which is where we learn about the different cultures and values. I was absolutely impressed by the depth of the words teamed with bright and colorful illustrations, and I do think that this is another book that should be in everyone's classroom--especially while a classroom learns about the components of poetry. We used this book in class when studying units of poetry, and I loved that the children were the authors and that they all came from different backgrounds. As the children are the real authors, the poems in this story were selected by Wendy Cooling, who has edited short stories of Roald Dahl, and in this book she works with Shiela Moxley, a world-traveling painter who studies different cultures from all around the world.

For classroom use, I would use this as a Literacy lesson in unison with geographical and cultural studies. As a pre-activity, students could write their own poem about something they know well from where they live or what they see every day. After reading the poems, we could have the students draw relationships that they make with their poetry and the poems from around the world. When they find one that they can relate to, they could write about why they feel strongly for the poetry, and create their own picture to describe the poetry. I would say this book is more fit for 7-12 year old readers, but it could be used in most classrooms that are practicing a poetry unit.