POETRY #1

Book Review For:

Florian, Douglas. 2007. COMETS, STARS, THE MOON, AND MARS: SPACE POEMS AND PAINTINGS. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. ISBN 9780152053727

            COMETS, STARS, THE MOON, AND MARS is a bright and colorful collection of poems about outer space by Douglas Florian. Each poem and its illustrations cover two pages, sprawling out in an imitation of space itself. Cut out circles and other shapes invite readers to touch the pages. Painted strokes create a wispy sky or space, and scattered here and there are digital-like pictures, cut and pasted in. The table of contents and titles are in a more bold print, which makes it easy to read. It is truly a visual feast for the eyes.

            Douglas Florian describes the planets and other space-related things with comparisons to items and concepts children are familiar with here on earth, making them understandable and not so distant after all. THE BLACK HOLE poem, for example, mentions “black ink” and “lumps of coal” for imagery and “giant…broom”, which are familiar, concrete items that children can relate to. Florian adds one last comment to the poem: “Wish I had one in my room”, creating a mental image in readers’ minds of a black hole sucking up the mess of objects in their rooms. The rhyming is comforting and the sound of “wish” after the mention of the broom is reminiscent of the sound a broom makes while sweeping. Thus, a fun, light, participatory mood is created throughout the whole delightful book.

            Children could recite the poetry with volunteers reading a line or two, or the children’s painted space artwork, complete with added cut out, printed pictures, could be displayed around the room or on a refrigerator at home. Connections to science vocabulary would be beneficial, as well as following up with a field trip to a planetarium.