SUMMERSAULTS

Florian (Lizards, Frogs, and Polliwogs, 2001, etc.) keeps rolling along through one successful thematic poetry collection after another, making his work look as effortless and joyful as child’s play. In this latest collection, a companion to his Winter Eyes (1999), he explores both the positives and negatives of the summer season in 28 short, rhyming poems that succeed in being both humorous and finely crafted. Each poem distills one aspect of summer life into a small, polished shell full of rich vocabulary, often encapsulating a common experience such as skipping rope, telling ghost stories around a campfire, swimming like an otter, or fending off flies. Florian’s poems often include clever wordplay or invented words. (“Summerize” sums up the four months of the season in just four lines; “The Sum of Summer” creates new numerical designations: “four fillion flies and five sillion fleas.”) He also includes lots of action themes, as well as sensory experiences that make the reader remember the heat and humidity of summer weather and the warmth of summer sunshine. Florian’s characteristic watercolor illustrations accompany each poem, adding additional notes of simple but stylish humor. Teachers will like this collection for use in the early elementary grades, especially during the last weeks of school; parents will like it for reading aloud on long car trips; and kids will like it because the poems are funny, rhyming, and short. This is children’s poetry at its best, and Florian’s fans will be waiting for the corresponding collections on fall and spring. (Poetry. 4-10)