Comets, Stars, The Moon and Mars Review

Comets, Stars, The Moon and Mars
by Douglas Florian

Not since Ogden Nas has there been a kids' poet as inventive and playful as Douglas Florian. 

Check out the charming wordplay in Saturn, for example:

Saturn's rings turn round Saturn.
Its moons turn round it, too.
Saturn, by turns, turns round the sun
Saturning through and through.

And then there's this pithy summation of Pluto's woes:

Pluto was a planet.
Pluto was admired.
Pluto was a planet.
Till one day it got fired.

Not only will this help fix the planets and other heavenly bodies more firmly in a child's memory, but it's startling and fresh for parents as well. 

Florian avoids the kiddie poetry cliches that drive me nuts: he varies his meter and rhyme schemes, he fiddles and diddles with meanings, his images often startle and amaze, and he's playful and witty at almost every turn, but gets his facts straight.

And the art! He primed brown paper bags (how's that for recycling?) and used great swashes of wet, drippy color, and then interspersed bits of paper and stamped letters, all tied together thematically to each poem. Check out the little cut-outs too, which open windows onto different pages.

But don't be fooled; these collages only look messy and spontaneous. It's all still uncluttered and carefully composed, and rife with visual puns and fun diversions, a perfect foil to his verses.

Take the Pluto poem again--our poor, demoted pal is stamped with letters spelling rock? hard place? dog? stone? ufo? oddball? etc. I found myself resisting the urge to utterly decimate his copyright and recreate the art as giant murals in my son's space-themed bedroom.