Blog #11

Mirror, Mirror
Written by: Marilyn Singer
Illustrated by: Josee Masse

Penguin Group Inc.

2010

29 pages

Poetry

 

            I chose this book after sifting through books in the juvenile poetry section.  Mirror, Mirror is a specialized poetry book for children.  This book is a collection of poems written by the same author with related topics for one age group in which all the poems are written in a specific poetic form.  Mirror, Mirror is a collection of reverso poems based upon fairy tales and traditional literature such as Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and even the Ugly Duckling. In this type of poetry the author will write a poem that can be read both down and up.  This type of poetry commonly expresses different viewpoints and brings out different characters in a story.

            The illustrations in this book are shown as a single page spread.  There is formal text placement throughout the book.  The poem appears on one side of the page and the illustration appears on the opposite side.  The illustrator used very bright, intense colors of red, yellow, blue, and green.  These colors are very saturated.  The illustrator has painted the illustrations.  It seems to be with acrylic or oil paints.  There is texture and layering of colors in each illustration.  Each illustration has taken on the character of the reverso poem and the title, Mirror, Mirror.  The illustrations are all somewhat mirror images depicting the poems.  They are very creative!

            This book is appropriate for older ages beginning with third grade.  This is a fun way to show off the many different types of poetry and how fun writing poetry can actually be!  I would use this book in my classroom to talk about the reverso poem.  The last page of the book is actually a note from the author about how she first wrote a reverse poem.  Students could even write their own reverse poem.  Younger grades could use this to talk about the different characters in these traditional stories.  They could read the poem and discuss how the character might have felt during the story.  I like this book because of the illustrations and the reverso poems.  It has won no awards.