Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars by Douglas Florian

Florian, Douglas. 2007. COMETS, STARS, THE MOON, AND MARS. New York: Harcourt Books. ISBN: 9780152053727

This collection of poetry mixes informational style with amazing artwork to create an “out of this world” experience.  Written and illustrated by the author, Douglas Florian, this work includes poems of galaxies, planets, stars comets and the black hole. Each poem is accompanied by bright illustrations that give the reader a glimpse at the depth and mysteriousness of the heavens. Using paper sacks, a collage is painted and pieced together making scenery to set the tone for the accompanying poem. Florian also takes liberty with the placement of text and spacing, and shapes the poetry to create visual interest. When the reader finds the poem about the sun they will find the word in several languages circling this fireball. The closing of the book includes a Galactic Glossary so that the reader will have a source of additional factual information such as how the planets are named. If you read Mars’ entry you will find that it was named after the Roman god of war because its color reminded observers of blood, or read the Sun’s entry and learn that it is approximately 93 million miles from Earth.

Although the poems have factual information, there are also entertaining elements that appeal to children. An example would be the poem about Pluto and its downgrading from a planet to a dwarf planet. Florian adds humor to the reclassification by concluding that Pluto was a planet, till one day it got fired. Along with the use of rhyme, this book would make a nice addition to the elementary classroom or library.

When students are studying the solar system the unit could be introduced with the poem titled  

The Solar System.

Each planet orbits around the sun
(A somewhat circular path).
To calculate the time it takes
Requires lots of math.

Astronomers know the planets well,
Each mountain, ring, and moon.
But none has ever gone to one,
Nor will go to one soon.

This selection could bring about discussion concerning the planets, orbits and characteristics of each planet.

Providing the same items the author/illustrator used in creating the illustrations (brown paper bags, rubber stamps or potato carvings, and water tempera paints) the students can create an artistic representation of the solar system either as a flat or 3-D model. Research would guide the artwork to develop correct color schemes of each planet and calculations would have to be developed to create a scale model of the distance between each planet from the sun.