4 December 2009 POETREES by Douglas Florian, Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster, March 2010, 48p., ISBN: 978-1-4169-8672-0
I love how consistently creative Douglas Florian is in his conceptualizing, composing, and illustrating exceptionally fun bookfuls of poems that are focused on a child-friendly topic. Employing poetry across the curriculum is a valuable educational strategy, and many of Florian's books are so perfectly suited for utilizing poetry in the science curriculum. His DINOTHESAURUS was a big hit last year, and POETREES -- his new picture book of poems all about types and aspects of trees -- will be similarly celebrated.
Concentration of rich language is one of those aspects of poetry that is so enjoyable. Take a look at all of the examples of tree-speak Florian employs in these eighteen poems:
acorn, acre, anchor, ancient, array, banyan, bark, bend, boring, branch, bristlecone, canoe, canopy, cedar, celestial, climb, coconut, crown, dirt, dragon, elves, fig, flakes, forest, fronds, gargantuan, girth, gnawing, gnomes, growth, gum, heart-shaped, heartwood, heavenly, hollow, hues, jagged, jug, larvae, leaf, lobed, longevity, munching, native, oak, palm, peels, pillar, rain, rings, roots, sap, sapwood, scheme, scribbly, scurry, sequoias, seed, shields, spines, splits, spongy, stem, strewn, terrestrial, thrive, treading, trolls, trunk, voles, woodcuts, yew
The design of the book is equally inventive. Being that trees are so darn tall, this book opens with the spine at the top so that tree illustrations and text are able to stretch out and take up two-page vertical spreads measuring twenty inches bottom to top. Florian utilizes a variety of poetic forms beginning --so appropriately -- with a concrete poem (titled The Seed) in the shape of the infinity symbol.
Put all these pieces together, and here's an example of what you get:
"Roots
The roots of trees
Don't just grow
d
o
w
n
They b r a n c h out
Sideways, underground,
To help the tree to get a grip,
To anchor it so it won't slip.
As root hairs drink
The rain that
p
o
u
r
s
They sip it up like tiny straws.
While by the growing roots in holes
Live badgers, rabbits, moles, and voles.
They tunnel under roots of trees
And root there for their families."
The book concludes with a "Glossatree" that provides extensive botanical, historical, and cultural information about the subjects of the eighteen poems.
Having entertained my fellow travelers with an impromptu poetry read-aloud this afternoon, while we waited at the Jitney stop in midtown Manhattan, I can also tell you that these poems sound really great aloud.
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