REVIEW: Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars by Douglas Florian

Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars by Douglas Florian is a poetry book about the solar system and space. Consisting of 20 poems, all accompanied by mixed media paintings by Florian, this fun and bouncy book will get young students engaged and loving outer space. The poetry book contains back matter about each of the poem’s topics at the end of the book. The poems in Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars are: Skywatch, The Universe, A Galaxy, The Solar System, The Sun, Mercury, Venus, The Earth, The Moon, Mars, The Minor Planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, The Comet, The Constellations, The Black Hole, The Great Beyond.

Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars is lyrical and whimsical while being informational and engaging for young readers. The tone of the book is upbeat and fun and many of the poems contain direct addresses to further engage the young readers. Florian is an incredible poet. He uses a variety of forms and rhythms including lyric poetry and light verse as well as short-form stanzas to keep the pace fast. While there is no set rhyme scheme, the tone is lighthearted and fun in every poem. The rhyme scheme varies throughout the book; for example, poems such as 'The Sun' are written as a rhyming couplet using an AABBCC rhyme scheme (Earth/girth, old/gold, sunspot/hot) while others such as the poem ‘Jupiter’ consist of internal rhyme and portmanteau to create a playful sound and a lively tongue-twister effect, "super-dupiter Jupiteriffic." Alliteration is used in many of the poems which helps add to the playfulness of the work "plainly prolific,” and “million miles.”

The poem ‘Galaxy’ is a concrete poem written in the shape of a spiral which serves as a visual metaphor for the rotation of our spiral galaxy and forces the reader to turn the book to read it. This visual metaphor and kinetic experience add to the whimsy of the book and as it invites students to engage with the physical laws of the universe.

Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars is humorous and fun to read. Florian engages young readers as they are pulled into the poem through silly questions and direct addresses. In the poem ‘Venus’ Florian uses sense imagery to describe the inhospitable landscape and asks the reader if it's so toxic, “why was it named for the goddess of love?” In the poem, ‘The Sun’ Florian jokingly asks the reader “and did you know…the sun is hot?” Imagery is used to describe the distant planet of Neptune, "frigid and freezing and blue." Despite the poem's whimsical nature, the poems are incredibly informative. Allusions to mythology are constant (as many of our planets and heavenly bodies are named after them) as well as scientific missions such as the famous NASA space probe Voyager 2. This poetry collection serves as a wonderful cross-curricular tool. It bridges the gap between the humanities and the sciences, inviting students into abstract subjects like astronomy in an approachable way. Florian shows that conceptual topics can be seamlessly introduced to young students through creative expression and linguistic play.

Mercury 

Speedy, nimble, quick and fast,

Round the sun it rushes past. 

Always racing on the run…

You’d run, too, so near the sun.

I would introduce this poem to elementary school students as a tie into their space unit for space and the solar system. To start we will sit on the carpet and turn down the lights and then turn on the Smart Board and have a video of the stars behind me. I will ask them what they like about outer space and if they have a favorite planet. After we chat, I would tell them my favorite planet is Mercury and read the poem aloud. I would then ask the students what quality stands out about Mercury and reread the poem with increasing speed to mimic Mercury's orbit and ask the students to spin their fingers in a circle as I read to make a physical connection to the fast orbit of the planet.

Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars is a wonderful book to get lower elementary students engaged and interested in the complex and abstract nature of space. Florian encourages students to visualize the scale and personality of the solar system through word play and art. This combination of poetry and science will help with engagement and retention for young learners. I highly recommend this book to pair with a science unit over space or to read on National Space Day, celebrated annually on the first Friday of May. 

Florian, D. (2007). Comets, stars, the moon and mars: Space poems and paintings (D. Florian, Illus.). Harcourt Children's Books. ISBN-13: 978-0152053727.