Poetry Book Review: "Florian Poetry"

Citation:

Florian, Douglas. Dinothesaurus: prehistoric poems and paintings. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2009. ISBN:978-1-4169-7978-4




Review:

Florian presents a wonderfully-illustrated conventional rhyming poetry book about eighteen dinosaurs and the prehistoric world they live in. The illustrations are made from a variety of water colors, collage, stencils and gouache that are promising to the eye. Children will enjoy Florian's combination of wordplay, rhyming and humor throughout the text. There is an added educational element throughout the text since the author included each dinosaur's name pronunciation, brief description of the dinosaur and an informative glossary that will keep science teachers and science enthusiasts smiling. This is a fun rhyming poetry book and is sure to keep the reader engaged to the very end!

Excerpt:

"Stegoceras"
steg-OSS-er-us (roof horn)

Thick head. Brick head. Hard head, too.
Round head. Mound head. Odd head, you.
Bone head. Stone head. Head like a dome.
Bash head. Smash head. Then head home.

Introducing the poem:

I would introduce this poem to school-age children so they can see how one specific anatomy part of a dinosaur, animal, mammal, reptile, etc. could be used to make a rhyming poem. I would also encourage students to use a thesaurus to enrich the vocabulary portion of their poem.