All Together

Title- All Together, A Child’s Treasury of verse

Author/Retold- Dorothy Aldis

Illustrated by Helen D. Jameson

Genre- poetry 

Grade level- 1st graders to 12th graders

All Together, A Child’s Treasury of verse is a collection of poems. The poem “Mouths” is about a child who she had two mouths, one to eat with and one to talk with. The child thinks that all the time mouths just wanna talk, but what they want is to chew. “Supper for a Lion” starts off with a lion in a cage walking back and forth. The lion thinks it’s time to eat. The child asks if the Lion wants stew or a bone. She tells the Lion to stop looking at her as if she would taste good. 

I think this book is great for all ages. There are some poems that are very simple to understand, but enjoyable for younger children. There are others that are complex in nature and older English students can try to derive what that poem means to them. I would personally use this book as discussion piece exercise for older students. I would read them poem and it would on be a page already for them and we would have a Socratic method type dialogue about what each student thinks it means.