Shields, Carol Diggory. 2003. Brainjuice: Science, Fresh Squeezed! Ill. by Richard Thompson. New York: Handprint Books.Carol Diggory Shields opens her collection of poems with a letter to the elementary school science teacher who inspired her, in which she espouses, "No more 25-pound textbooks to lug to and from school! No more memorizing! No more charts and graphs!"
This collection of forty-one short poems takes a light but factual look at the often mind-boggling subject of science, including the fields of earth and space science, life science, chemistry, and physics. The brief format of the poems distills the main concepts, getting to the essence of each topic. Humor, rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, repetition, and other poetic devices make the information fun to discuss and easy to remember. A few of the poems parody familiar children's songs and rhymes. For example, Shields turns "Itsy Bitsy Spider" into a lesson about the water cycle: "Out came the sun, / Dried up all the rain, / Which drifted high as vapor, / Forming clouds again."
Green banners across the tops of the pages give suggestions for sharing the poem: "To be sung to the accompaniment of a battered acoustic guitar. Chords: G, C, and D," (for "Inside of Old Smokey," a poem about volcanoes); factoids: "One bee can fly around the world fueled by two tablespoons of honey"; and mnemonic devices: "The stages of cell mitosis: 'Purple Monsters Are Terrifying.' (Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase)." Richard Thompson's cartoon ink drawings display wry humor and add to the overall enjoyment. A title-index by section in the back gives an overview of the contents.
This book is great for both budding and reluctant scientists. It offers poems on a wide range of scienctific topics, and teachers and librarians will find it a valuable source of poems to introduce topics, extend them, or just provide a poetry break.
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