It was okay , not bad not very good ! ( )

"“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred."

The most famous passage in this short poem, but the entire poem is wonderful! ( )

I had differing opinions when I read this poem for specific reasons. For instance, I liked the book because of the historical factor and talking about the cavalry charge against the Russian batteries at Balaclara on October 25th, 1854. However with this historical aspect, this book should be used at or above the 5th grade level. Students in K-4th grade have not learned the historical events such as this one and will be extremely confused by the poem. In addition to the historical aspect, this poem should be used for students 5th grade and above for the academic language included within it. For example, the text reads “Forward, the Light Brigade! Was there a man dismay’d? Not tho’ the soldier knew Someone had blunder’d?” Just within this little piece of the poem, there is vocabulary such as “dismay’d” and “blunder’d” that are considered to be old English. Students not in 5th grade and above will be able to comprehend the definitions of these words as well as the significance of why they are spelled differently than the words “dismayed” and “blundered”. Also, this poem is based on a violent and tragic event. Students need to learn about events such as this and I feel that this poem does a good job with introducing this event and not going into the gory details about the cavalry charge. This poem allows the students to interpret the event in their own minds (with guidance from the teacher). ( )

I was excited to check out this book when I found it at the library, as I had remembered hearing the poem when I was younger. I believe that this book lays out the poem nicely, in a concise, understandable way. The illustrations mirror the subject of the poem (war), without being too gory for the young readers. I would say that this is a book that children should read with an adult because of the fact that the text is in cursive and may be difficult for young readers to recognize. Also, the text reverts to older versions of English that children are likely to not recognize. Overall, I found this to be a nice presentation of the poem and I would utilize this version with my own students. ( )