Handsprings by Douglas Fiorian
Winter is gone and spring is here. Fiorian is ready to celebrate! Let’s shine the spotlight on this ode to spring:
Summary
This collection of poetry shares details about all aspects of spring. The book begins with poems about winter leaving and spring arriving. It continues with its focus solely on spring with poems about: grass, things you see in spring, what’s to love and to hate about spring, wind, rain, baseball and spring cleaning. The seasonal theme will draw readers in and allow them to connect to the poems. Therefore, this book can be enjoyed by readers of all ages.
Discussion
Handsprings is a book of indivdual poet compilations with a topical connection, meaning Douglas Fiorian wrote all of the poems in the book on the topic of spring. The book begins with a Table of Contents. The titles of the poems signal the reader to the topical connection in the book. Fiorian includes a poem with the same name as the title. Titles that will catch readers attention could be: "Spring is When," "What I Love About Spring," "What I Hate About Spring," "Play Ball" "Ten Things to Do When it Rains" and "Hey Day!"
The poems have a strong sing-songy rhythm because of the rhyme. Fiorian uses matching sounds at the ends of lines to aid the flow of each poem. Students will enjoy listening to the sound of the poems or reading them aloud. The poems vary from including one or two words in a line to including six or seven words in a line. The format of the rhymes varies within the poems (AABBCC, ABCB, ABBC) as does the layout of the poems on the page. The layout often matches the words in the line or the theme of the poem. In "Growing," Fiorian (2006) took the last line “My grin is growing roomy” and placed it on the page to look like a smile (p. 13). His poem, "Spring," is read from bottom to top like a wire spring bouncing up. The most fitting layout comes with the poem "Rain Reign," where the letters in the words are written from top to bottom like raindrops falling from the sky.
The language selected seems fitting to the theme of each poem. Fiorian executes an economy of words on each line in many poems like: "What I Love About Spring," "What I Hate About Spring," "Spring," "Ten Things to Do When it Rains," "Spring Berries" and "Nature Walk." His use of one or two words elicits imagery and even unlocks the connection to memories from the reader’s own experiences in spring. He also plays with words like in the poem "Spring Seeds." He writes, “Spring succeeds ex-seed-ing-ly” (Fiorian, 2006, p. 27). He also plays with the meaning of phrases like in the poem "Fresh Spring," where he says “Hey Spring, get fresh with me” (Fiorian, 2006, p. 47). Older readers will appreciate this subtle fun with language.
The illustrations add to the images readers are able to create when reading. Fiorian included painted illustrations to match the words from his poems to a visual image. He uses bright, bold primary colors to create fun illustrations. The illustrations and words from the poems elicit happy, lighthearted emotions while reading this book. As mentioned before, feelings of nostalgia and connections to memories can also be evoked when reading.
Handsprings is one book in a collection of seasonal themed books by Douglas Fiorian, which include: Winter Eyes, Summersaults and Autumnblings. Fiorian creatively signals the season of focus in each book by including it in the title. The reading of one book in this collection invites further reading of the other seasonal themed books. This book is accessible to all ages, but seems to fit as a resource for elementary students in grades K-5.
Overall, the strength of this book is the rhythm, rhyme and sound of the poems, as well as the seasonal theme tying all of the poems together.
Awards/Reviews
Douglas Fiorian has written and illustrated many poetry books for children. His book, Dinothesaurus, was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, a Horn Book Fanfare List selection and a Junior Library Guild selection in 2009. Lizards, Frogs and Polliwogs was a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book in 2005. Bow Wow Meow Meow was a Gryphon Award-winner and Parents Magazine Best Book of the Year in 2003. His book Winter Eyes was a New York Times Best Illustrated Book in 1999.
Here are examples of a few reviews:
“Florian continues to churn out clever poems accompanied by his spirited watercolor and colored-pencil artwork. Illustrations include a girl skateboarding on a green leaf, a boy doing handsprings and a daisy with a smiling face poking around a brick wall. He employs lots of playful phrases: Spring is great/For growing grass./Spring has zing/And spring has sass and The March wind rattles/And skedaddles. There is one nimble concrete poem titled Rain Reign and another selection called Ten Things To Do When It Rains: -¦Surf the net./Build a jet./Or go outside and get wet. The format will be familiar to fans of Summersaults (2002), Autumnblings (2003), and Winter Eyes (1999, all HarperCollins), with plenty of white space framing muddy, childlike illustrations and simple, clear print. These sprightly odes shout out the poet's affection for the season and conclude his well-received quartet. Most libraries will want to purchase this entertaining suite.” – School Library Journal
“The last of Florian's seasonal series, which includes Winter Eyes (1999), summersaults (2002), and Autumnblings (2003), this collection of 48 short, rhyming poems celebrates a child's experience of spring in a winning combination of exuberance, delicacy and messy fun. From flowers and showers to skateboard speeding and baseball striking, the small pictures, in watercolor and colored pencil, add to the physical sounds and action without overwhelming the words: "Picking berries is very fun / Very berry merry fun," reads the poem, which is accompanied by a picture showing a kid's hand smeared and blotchy with color. There is the delight of wallowing in oozing mud, and also "the feel of rain that drips / Down my nose and on my lips." Preschoolers will have fun chanting and acting out the rhyme and repetition; older kids will like all the puns and wordplay--from the book title to "Spring succeeds ex-seed-ing-ly." Yes it does.” – Booklist
This book could be used to develop a poetry station. The poems from this book could be written out on chart paper for students to read at the station. Students could also draw an illustration to match the poem.
The poems from this book could be included in a poetry notebook. Students could circle or highlight the rhyming words in the poem and make a list of other words which rhyme with words in the poem.
This book, along with the other books in the seasonal collection, could be used as mentor poems for writing. Students could write their own poems about the seasons.
Douglas Fiorian has written many books of poetry. His other books could be collected for a poetry study. The comprehension strategies of questioning, visualizing and inferring could be modeled, discussed and practiced with Fiorian’s works of poetry.
Bibliographic Information
Fiorian, Douglas. 2006. Handsprings. New York: Greenwillow Books. ISBN-13: 978-0-06-009280-1.
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