Recently Published Poetry - 2012

Florian, D.  (2012).  unBEElievables.  New York, NY:  Beach Land Books.  ISBN 978-1-4424-2652-8.

Dr. Sylvia Vardell, in her book Poetry Aloud Here:  Sharing Poetry with Children in the Library (2006, American Library Association) says, "This seems to be a golden age for publishing poetry for children, with more variety of poets and poetry formats than ever."  This particular volume of poetry published last year by Douglas Florian falls into one of my favorite categories - trade books.

Trade books are books written for children that can be used in their content classes – math, science, social studies, art, etc.  The books help present information in interesting, eye-catching ways.  I’ve been using trade books with my students for years.  However, a new genre for me in trade books is poetry.

Douglas Florian has written an amazing book that is all about honeybees in his book unBEElievables.  The poems are short, they rhyme, and they have easy-to-follow rhythms which makes them fun to read.  The topics of the poems cover everything students might find interesting about bees, and the paintings by Florian provide eye-catching, complex images for exploring.  But what a unique feature of this book that I personally love is the fact that each poem is paired with a prose paragraph that gives additional facts and information about the topic covered in the poem. 

I can see using Florian’s book with a wide range of ages.  While the poems and text are easy enough to be understood by my six-year-old (who loves Bee Movie and would already have some background in what bees are like and what they do), I can envision using it with my middle or high school students when we use a multi-page piece from a science article about bees that covers all the same topics as the poems.  The poetry would be great for helping the older reader visualize what is being talked about in the article.

I would introduce the book by using the poem “Bee Anatomy”:

            Lovely legs,

            Lovely hue.

            Lovely long

            Antennae, too.

            Lovely eyes,

            Lovely wings.

            But ouch!

            How in the end

            It stings!

This poem is accompanied by a paragraph describing bee anatomy as well as a painting that has bee parts labeled.  Other poems could be used to help students understand important aspects of bees and what they do.  Poems include many topics such as:

            “Queen Bee”

            “Drone”

            “Worker Bees”

            “Honey”

            “Pollen”

            “Waggle Dance”

Altogether there are 14 poems, a “BEEbliography,” and web addresses for further reading.  Bright, colorful, and informational, this book should be able to find many uses in the science classrooms of elementary schools, and even those of secondary students.  Even though it has been labeled as being for ages 5-8, it will find a much wider appeal.