Tag: poetry

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Poetry for Kids by 🎨Douglas Florian🎨

📚🎨 Douglas Florian books always feel a little bit like opening a child’s sketchbook in the best possible way.

His poems are goofy, clever, surprisingly smart, and full of the kinds of wordplay kids LOVE repeating out loud. But honestly, half the fun is staring at the illustrations, which look like they were made with watercolor, crayon, collage scraps, scribbles, stamps, and whatever else happened to be nearby on the art table.

Here are three favorites I keep coming back to:

🐉 How to Draw a Dragon 
This book is basically an invitation to imagination. The poem walks kids through creating dragons with “forked tongues” and “sharp back toes,” and the mixed-media artwork looks wonderfully handmade and textured—almost like a classroom art project turned magical. The foldout dragon art show at the end is SUCH a fun touch. 

🧊 ICE! Poems About Polar Life 
This one somehow manages to be funny, informative, and beautiful all at once. Kids get poems about narwhals, puffins, krill, polar bears, and more, packed with puns and playful language (“hi-bear-nate” made me laugh). 

🐄 Cows and Sheep and Chicks That Cheep: Farm Poems 
This newest collection is pure chaotic farm fun. The poems are full of ridiculous puns (“udderly chill” cows, “a-maize-ing” corn), and the illustrations are packed with visual jokes—animals lounging in chairs, taking selfies, knitting, and generally acting like humans. The art was created with watercolor, colored pencil, collage, and even paper bags, which gives the whole thing this loose, playful texture.

I love how Florian’s books make poetry feel playful instead of precious. Kids don’t feel like they’re “studying poetry” when they read these—they just feel like they’re having fun.

✨ Which would your kids grab first: dragons, polar animals, or goofy farm animals?

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Today’s book recommendation: SPI-KU: A CLUTTER OF SHORT VERSE ON EIGHT LEGS by Leslie Bulion – Middle Grade Literary Nonfiction

My boys spent hours pouring over this beautiful book of science poetry! The illustrations by @r2meganck are detailed and fun, and the verses by @lesliebulion are super playful and informative.

I’ll be the first to admit that I do NOT like spiders, at least, not in my home. 😂 But, that doesn’t mean I don’t like learning about them from a safe distance!

Reading this book, I was struck by the sheer variety of spiders around the world, and all the cool things they can do. Did you know that some spiders can make a snake-like hiss by rubbing their legs together or build a booby-trapped door to catch prey, rather than a web?

Or that some male spiders strum a special mating “song” on a female’s web to let her know he’s interested? But that after he’s done, he better clear off quick if he doesn’t want to be her lunch!

I also really loved the sizing chart in the backmatter. Some spiders are REALLY big and some are REALLY small–either way, it’s extra creepy!

Besides being a super fun book to explore, SPI-KU is also the perfect complement to a poetry unit, or to bring poetry into a biology unit. Spiders are fascinating creatures, and this is a fun format to learn all about them.

Happy reading!