If I Were in Charge of the World and Other Worries: Poems for Children and Their Parents

I'd give every family a copy of this book. It's now a read-aloud favorite of a 2nd generation - eliciting the same giggles and groans it did when first published.

Great book to read aloud to students and to challenge them to write similar poems.

I was in the second grade when I first found this book, and subsequently read and memorized each poem. Viorst has an astounding ability to incorporate the hightened emotions of childhood with the reality of aging. She can be whimsical and rhythmic as well as dramatic and mornful. I would recommend buying this for any relative, friend, or yourself no matter what age. I still have my very first copy given to me by my grandmother and have yet to go a year without picking it up. Believe me, it is more than it seems.

I, too, got this book in approximately the third grade -- 17 years ago. I am now teaching middle school literature and share this collection with all of my students; I also have given it as a gift to every person under the sun, no matter what their age! It remains, unquestionably, my favorite collection of poetry, if not for its content, then for its sheer simplicity and "perfection." (If you read it, you'll understand what I mean...) Judith Viorst magically captures the sadness, scariness, uncertainty, and immense joys of childhood and adolescence -- her rhymes are clever, too! As I return to these poems as an adult, I find them as applicable today as they were more than ten years ago. Thank you, Ms. Viorst, for such an wonderful book!

I originally got this book from my grandparents when I was in third grade--16 or 17 years ago. I didn't like it immediately, but a few years later I fell in love with the quick rhymes and the amusing, realistic subject matter. I still have some of them memorized today: "They tell me that I talk too much. I'm trying not to talk too much..." I'm replacing the book now because I've realized that I lost it sometime in the last year, and I still enjoy re-reading it now. Highly recommended!