Review by New York Times Review
In space, no one can hear you giggle. Except maybe Douglas Florian. The poet-painter's latest book brings warm wit to the outermost reaches of cold, dark space. Twenty short poems paired with paintings on double-page spreads create an interstellar journey, starting with "Skywatch," an invitation to the pleasures of amateur astronomy. The book travels through our solar system and ends up in the somewhat vaguer territory of comets, black holes and "the Great Beyond." At the end, there's a "galactic glossary" and a short bibliography with suggestions for further reading. (Tots demanding "A Brief History of Time"? Blame this book!) Florian's illustrations depict the marvels of space with luminous texture and detail. Painted in gouache on brown paper bags, they're littered with a secondary text of rubber-stamped words and collaged with scraps of star maps, photographs and other surprises. Die-cut, circular peepholes give glimpses of stars and planets from neighboring pages. The most engaging verses in "Comets, Stars" serve up planetary facts with a dose of cheeky humor. Take, for example, "Venus": "Scalding-hot surface,/Nine hundred degrees./Nothing can live there,/No creatures,/No trees./Poisonous clouds/Of acid above./Why was it named for/the goddess of love?" Or "Pluto," a riff on cosmic injustice: "Pluto was a planet./But now it doesn't pass./Pluto was a planet./They say it's lacking mass./Pluto was a planet./Pluto was admired./Pluto was a planet./Till one day it got fired." Poor Pluto! It should be noted that these are standout stanzas. Some of Florian's poems stumble on lumpy rhymes or fall flat (see "The Comet," which begins: "Ice, rock, dirt/Metal and gas -/Around the sun/A comet may pass.") Previous books better showcase his lively writing with subjects that are - quite literally - alive. His "Insectlopedia" and "Mammalabilia" offer hilarious observations of animals, while collections like "Winter Eyes" find poignancy in the shared seasonal rituals of human beings. Until we find life on Mars, Florian's most enjoyable work will probably stay rooted here, on plain old planet Earth. Jessica Bruder, a reporter for The Oregonian, is the author of the forthcoming "Burning Book," about the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
This large-format book looks at astronomy through the magnifying, clarifying lens of poetry. Each broad double-page spread features a short, accessible poem about a subject such as the sun, each of its planets, a comet, a constellation, or the universe, set within an impressive painting. A concrete poem entitled a galaxy is a curling spiral of words set against the midnight-blue sky and surrounded by other galaxies. Stamped type, cutout pages, collage elements with printed papers, and sweeping brushstrokes all figure prominently in the expressive collage artwork, which ably illustrates the verse. The last pages carry A Galactic Glossary with a paragraph on the topic of each poem, followed by a list of books and Web sites. Florian's ode to Pluto matter-of-factly notes its demoted status, but even better is his pithy poem on Jupiter: Jupiter's jumbo, / Gigantic, / Immense, / So wide / Side to side, / But gaseous, not dense. / With some sixteen moons / It's plainly prolific-- / So super-dupiter / Jupiterrific! Read this aloud.--Carolyn Phelan Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Just in time for Young People's Poetry Week (April 14-20), several volumes come to the fore. Douglas Florian takes to the skies with his Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Space Poems and Paintings. Die-cut holes in the pages reveal planetary delights. A star painted on the full-bleed spread for "The Universe" ("The universe is every place,/ Including all the e m p t y space"), for instance, shows through a die-cut hole in the spread for "A Galaxy," the text of which spins in a spiral, mimicking the barred and eliptical spirals featured in the illustration. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-5-Nothing gladdens the heart of believers in good poetry for children more than a new collection by Florian, whose verses and paintings consistently capture the essence of his featured themes. This one literally sings the music of the spheres. Twenty playfully lyrical poems treat topics such as the universe, the individual planets, constellations, and black holes. Each selection is presented on its own spread and adorned with a magical painting done in gouache, collage, and rubber stamps on brown paper. Circles abound in the artwork, and many pages have round cut-outs that lead into the next picture. For example, "the earth" ("Two-thirds water./One-third land./Valleys deep./Mountains grand") is illustrated with a colorful globe decorated with circled collage prints of animals and plants. A smaller orb appears nearby, made from a cut-out circle that reveals part of the illustration for the next selection, "the moon." Some of the paintings incorporate mythological names and images. The pleasing blend of faded shades and brilliant colors, of old-fashioned prints and fanciful sketches, makes the illustrations seem both antique and high-tech. An appended "Galactic Glossary" provides additional information. In both language and artwork, Florian strikes the perfect balance between grandeur and whimsy. Like Myra Cohn Livingston and Leonard Everett Fisher's Space Songs (Holiday House, 1988; o.p.), this book is a work of art worthy of the vastness of its subject.-Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, ME (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary, Intermediate) ""Pluto was a planet. / But now it doesn't pass. / Pluto was a planet. / They say it's lacking mass. / Pluto was a planet. / Pluto was admired. / Pluto was a planet. / Till one day it got fired."" Moving from universe to galaxy to solar system to sun, then back out through the planets to the constellations and ""the great beyond,"" Florian sums up the heavens in twenty snappy rhymes, all agreeably tongue-in-cheek but never so much so as to distort the information he conveys. Variants of flame-orange and its complementary blues predominate in the full-spread paintings, which incorporate collage-like accents that sometimes echo historical astronomy -- antique sun-faces doubling as sun spots, snippets of maps on the moon, a Roman mosaic of Neptune. Casually positioned words add both texture and meaning -- e.g., a tangerine Pluto is studded with possible new classifications: ""Ice dwarf? Debris? Asteroid? Planetesimal?"" With its gorgeous palette, sweeping vistas, and ingenious effects (including occasional die-cut holes), this is an expansive and illuminating view of its subject. A glossary pins down and somewhat extends the information; a minimal bibliography lists six sources, mostly for adults. Copryight 2007 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Stunning mixed-media illustrations accompany a series of poems that celebrate the wonder and mystery of space. From the universe, the sequence narrows its focus to the galaxy, the solar system and then each body in turn, from the sun to poor demoted Pluto, and beyond. The verse is characteristically playful, wrapping itself around astronomical facts with ease. Readers will learn about the temperature and size of the sun, our moon's phases and Voyager 2's discovery of Neptune's rings. Delightful as the poems are, however, it's this volume's illustrations that surpass. Bright gouache on brown paper bags lend texture to each spread; stamped words allow the illustrations to incorporate such details as names of moons and "sun" in several different languages; collage elements add further whimsy to the whole. To top off this feast for the eyes, occasional die-cuts provide telescopic windows onto adjoining spreads, firmly establishing for the reader the truth that space is a vast continuum, with new surprises in every corner of the sky. Each poem receives a thumbnail gloss at the end, offering additional facts or extending the information presented earlier. Glorious. (Picture book/poetry. 7-12) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
