Review1- Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It

Written by Gail Carson Levine, Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It is a hilarious devious poetry book of false apologies. Even the Table of Contents is a bit rude as all forty-seven poems have the same title: This is just to say. 

The author's introduction is found about five or six pages  after the first few poems much to the editor's great chagrin. Gail Carson Levine writes a nasty little false apology to her as well.

This is juts to say

Instead of at the beginning

I slipped

this introduction

in here

where

my editor excruciatinly loudly

screeched

it does not belong

Forgive me

I also shredded

her red pencil and stirred

the splinters into her tea

Gail Carson Levine's sinister humor was inspired by William Carlos Williams, a poet and physician who wrote a famous false apology (a note) to his wife after he had eaten her plums. You can read the poem, if you follow the link, here.

Although, this book was inspired by William Carlos Williams and it is written for elementary school children, I found it difficult to find teacher materials specifically by Williams for this age group. I believe his poems may be more suitable for junior high  and high school students.  I'm sure if teaching elementary school children "false apologies" through poetry, would go well with parents.

My questions are:

1. How could a teacher teach poetry using this example in a positive light?
2. How would parents react?
3. Would this type of poetry benefit younger learners?

All and all, I think Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It is loads of fun and would make students laugh. I think it's good to teach children humor from various prespectives; sarcasm can be seen in literature. It doesn't seem wrong to me that's it's a part of creative writing and poetry. As my partner stated this book is "Absolutely brilliant! The poems all follow the same verse-like pattern, although they do not all rhyme. I mean, it doesn’t exactly send the best message, since false apologies aren’t necessarily nice, but it’s a great read and many children would unquestionably love it"