Poetry Friday: Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature's Survivors

Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature's Survivors. Joyce Sidman. Illustrated by Beckie Prange. 2010. April 2010. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 40 pages.

I don't often associate poetry with science--or science with poetry. But reading Joyce Sidman's Ubiquitous may just change that. In Ubiquitous, she pays tribute to nature. Each spread features a poem, an illustration, and an informational paragraph providing readers with more background, more science. What subjects are presented? Bacteria. Mollusks. Lichens. Sharks. Beetles. Diatoms. Geckos. Ants. Grasses. Squirrels. Crows. Dandelions. Coyotes. Humans.

The poems are written in different styles--formats. Perhaps my favorite are the shape poems.

I'd have to say my favorite poem is "Tail Tale." This shape poem is written from the point of view of a squirrel and it is essentially one big run-on sentence! I just loved how Sidman portrays this animal!

Here's how it starts...

OK,
your brains are
big while ours are
just the size of
walnuts which
we love to eat by
the way with teeth
that can chew through
any sort of bird feeder you
care to erect and believe me
we will find them no matter
where you put 'em being insatiably
curious and natural-born problem-
solvers just as we find the nuts we...

I appreciated the combination of poetry with scientific fact. The poems are very creative, very artistic, in a way. Yet. The scientific details are there as well. I think this combination makes for an engaging read.


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews