We’ve got your favorite science poetry reads in one place, perfect for World Poetry Day and Poetry Month celebrations or rhyming-themed read alouds all year long! Read on for your invitation to a feather-filled fashion show, discover some unusual flowers of all shapes and sizes, explore Africa’s Serengeti Plain, find out what’s on the menu for some undersea creatures, and more!
Bird Show
by Susan Stockdale
Welcome to the Bird Show! Featuring a variety of fashionable feathered creatures—from the Mandarin Duck and the Grey-Crowned Crane to the Royal Flycatcher and Golden Pheasant—little ornithologists and fashionistas will marvel at the style and diversity in this energetic, rhyming celebration of pattern, color, and nature. Award-winning nonfiction author-illustrator Susan Stockdale offers young readers a front-row seat to this vibrant fashion show with her engaging text and eye-catching illustrations, and an afterword provides more information about each species as well as an entertaining pattern matching game.
Fantastic Flowers
by Susan Stockdale
It’s hard to believe that these flowers are real—but they are! With engaging rhymes and bright, bold images, Susan Stockdale introduces young readers to a wide range of unusual flowers. Can you imagine a flower that looks like a ballerina? A baboon? A napping baby? Back matter tells a little bit more about each flower (including color photographs) and describes the pollination process.
Stripes of All Types
by Susan Stockdale
A patterned parade of animals comes to life! Bouncy, alliterative rhyme and gorgeous illustrations introduce readers to a wide range of striped animals. The bright, detailed paintings help show the many reasons stripes are so often found in nature, and an afterword provides more information about each featured animal and where it lives, explaining the role its stripes play. Readers can test their knowledge of animal stripes with a fun matching game at the end!
Serengeti
Plains of Grass
by Leslie Bulion
illustrated by Becca Stadtlander
This portrait of the rainy season on East Africa’s southern Serengeti Plain offers young readers a compelling look at an ecosystem in motion. Using a series of interconnected verses inspired by an East African Swahili poem form—the utendi— science poet Leslie Bulion’s cadences and rhythmic lines mimic the web of life in the Serengeti. Lush, evocative gouache illustrations by Becca Stadtlander showcase the grandeur of this immense and complex ecosystem and provide close-up details of its wildlife inhabitants. Scientific notes on each spread and comprehensive back matter material offer more specifics. An ideal pick for cross-curricular learning.
Spi-Ku
A Clutter of Short Verse on Eight Legs
by Leslie Bulion
illustrated by Robert Meganck
Award-winning poet Leslie Bulion and illustrator Robert Meganck team up for this clutter (a collective noun for spiders) of short poems and humorously accurate illustrations celebrating the amazing attributes of Araneae. Meet spiders that spit silk, roll like wheels, scuba dive, hide under trap doors, strum tunes, and so much more. Watch as they find mates, find prey…or find mates that become prey! Packed with helpful sidebars, call-outs, a glossary of science terms, a description of the poetic forms, a list of common and scientific names, a spider-hunting adventure how-to, resources for further study, and a relative-size chart, this book is a feast for science and animal fans!
At the Sea Floor Café
by Leslie Bulion
illustrated by Leslie Evans
What’s on the menu for undersea creatures? Leslie Bulion’s clever collection of poems describes the devious and surprising methods ocean denizens use to forage for food, capture prey, and trick predators. Poems bobble and swim effortlessly from page to page, leading readers from the snail shell home of the jeweled anemone crab to a raft of violet snails hanging upside down in their bubble houses. Back matter includes science notes with details about each animal’s behavior, a glossary, and poetry notes explaining the types and forms of poems that appear on each spread.