Douglas Florian is a master when it comes to writing short, often amusing poems about animals. I have reviewed several of his animal centric poetry books, and so far we have met animals that live in water, dinosaurs, reptiles and amphibians, and in his book Beast Feast we meet a collection of especially bizarre creatures. In today's poetry title he takes us into the lives of mammals.
Mammalabilia
Mammalabilia
Douglas Florian
Poetry Picture Book
For ages 5 to 7
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004, 978-0152050245
Many of us are able to identify with mammals, perhaps
because our pets are usually mammals. They are furry, have four legs, and give
birth to live babies. Some of them even look a little like us, and we love to
read stories about them.
In this poetry
collection poet and artist, Douglas Florian, introduces us to a wide variety of
mammals, pairing clever little poems with his unique artwork. The poems come in
many forms. There are rhyming poems, blank verse poems, concrete poems, and
some of the poems contain word play elements that readers will find amusing.
Our mammalian
visit begins with the aardvark, which is without a doubt, a very odd animal.
They are so odd that the poet believes that “Aardvarks look better / By far in
the daark.” He is more complimentary about the ibex which “risk their necks /
On scary, airy mountain treks,” and he thinks otters are “quite charismatic.”
As they explore
this book readers will enjoy ‘listening in’ when the poet asks a Bactrian camel
a very important question, and they will find out what he thinks of gorillas,
porcupines, the elephant, lemurs, and other mammals from around the world.
This is one in a
series of poetry books about animals that Douglas Florian has created.
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