Poetry for Children 5903-23
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Poetry Break 8

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Available from librarypoint.org. accessed June 23, 2005

Judith Viorst

It’s A Wonderful World, But They Made a Few Mistakes

by Judith Viorst

 

It’s a wonderful world, but they made a few mistakes.

Like leaving out unicorns and putting in snakes.

Like no magic carpets, no wishing wells, no genies.

Like good guys getting picked on by the meanies.

Like arithmetic, especially multiplication.

Like expecting a person to stay at home for one whole week with a

sitter while that person’s mother and father take a vacation.

Like needing to finish the green beans to get the dessert.

Like everyone caring way too much about dirt.

Like letting there be a cavity in a tooth.

Like calling it a lie when all that this person has done is not

 mention part of the truth.

Like raining on soccer games, and liver for supper.

Like bunk beds where the younger person always gets stuck with the

lower and the older person always gets the upper.

Like leaving out mermaids and putting in splinters and bee stings

and wars and tornadoes and stomach aches.

 

It’s a wonderful world, but they made a few mistakes.

 

Sad Underwear and Other Complications, New York:  Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1995

 

Introduction
I thought the poems in this book were really interesting. Some are a little long so I would use them with 4-6 graders.
 
Extension
Talk about how people make mistakes. List on the board or paper things on this earth that are mistakes. Why are they mistakes? Read the book by Charlottle Foltz Jones, Mistakes That worked.
Separate the verbs, nouns and adjectives into different columns
 

Douglas Florian