MAMMALABILIA by Douglas Florian

Bibliography

Florian, Douglas. 2000. Mammalabilia. Orlando, FL: Harcourt. ISBN 9780152050245

Critical Analysis

Florian has compiled a variety of short, but descriptive poems about a variety of mammals in this book. Most of the poems are 4-6 short lines about a variety of mammals, but each one is full of rich language. In several of the poems, Florian uses the freedom of poetry in the layout and in the spelling of some words to add a different element to those poems. For example, his poem on camels curves as if it was written along the edge of a camel’s humps or his poem about porcupines is written with each line moving vertically as if it were the spines on a porcupine. All of the poems rhyme and have similar rhyming patterns that tie the book together beyond just the subject matter. Florian provides a table of contents so that we can find a particular animal poem in the book. As the author and illustrator, Florian was able to mimic some of the movement in the poems with the illustrations themselves, adding yet another dimension to the book.

Example

There could be a wide variety of uses for this book. It could be used in an animal unit and the students could create their own poems about the animal of their choice. I would use it to show how the form of the poetry can add just as much to the poem as the word choice does. His poem about zebras is an example that I can copy here to show you how the layout of Florian’s poem mimic the animal or the illustration he painted. He uses the words to create the stripes of the zebra and his illustration gives the reader a sense of how zebras can blend together in the wild because of their stripes.

Zebras

How many zebras

Do you see?

               I see two zebras.

I see three.

               I see three, too.

I see four.

               I see four, too.