I love the idea of this and I enjoyed reading it. I did *not* realize it was poetry until I got to the author's note at the end. ( )

This was interesting, it was cool that the author wrote it all inspired by the Korean poetry form sijo. It makes me think how the act of writing poetry and the question posed in this book are similar. When you think about the one thing you’d save, you have to go through a mental catalog of stuff that’s important to you and narrow down what’s most important and why to choose just one thing. The process of writing poetry forms like this is similar, you have to mold what you want to say around the framework of the form and in doing so, you start with what’s important that you want to communicate and then pare it down to the most important words to get that idea across and fit your form and have the two things synchronize with each other.

This story also inevitably leads you to consider what would be the one thing you would take (after knowing your family and pets are safe of course) and why. It was interesting how some of the answers from the students were more practical things that they need and some were purely sentimental as I think those two sorts of things are the first that will come to mind. It seemed like there were a lot of similar answers, but maybe that’s because in reality we are all human and very similar things are important to us because of why they are important to us. ( )

It's the age old question. If there was a fire, what would you save? Everyone has a different definition of that for sure. Imagine it as a school assignment and the variety of answers given . How each student has a specific reason for their item and how, after they hear the stories, their initial thoughts change.

I loved how inclusive the book was, speaking to the diversity of the classroom and the students. And a teacher who acknowledged that she learned from her students....if all were like that. ( )

I think this is a cool premise. I like the verse. I like the various characters that we see through the class' choices of what they would save. It's a little spare, and a little emotionally fraught, and altogether a good sort of book. ( )