Monday, March 4, 2013

diane recommends Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer

This companion to Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse is amazing! Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems contains more reverso poems from some classic fairy tales. For those of you who haven't had previous experience with this kind of book, reverso means that if you read the poem, line by line, from the top to bottom, and then from bottom to top, it would still make sense. The exciting part about these poems, is most of them are written from two different points of view. So, for example, when you read, "Ready, Steady, Go!" a retelling of the Tortoise and the Hare, you get to read the hare's perspective for one poem and for the reverso poem, you get to read it from the tortoise's point of view.

Although I love all of the poems, my favorites are the retelling of "Aladdin", and the retelling of "The Emperor's New Clothes". Unfortunately, without putting on the whole poem, I couldn't find a way to place a segment here that made sense. So, I decided to do one from the retelling of the Little Mermaid.
"For love,
give up your voice.
Don't
think twice."
and then the reverso:
"Think twice!
Don't
give up your voice
for love."
The cleverly done poems get all wrapped up by the very clever and carefully done pictures. The pictures are split in half as the poems are, but then they are tied together. They have opposite colors, but they look like, if you changed the colors, they could just be one picture. (Like on the cover) This is a fun book for kids of all ages, but especially fun if you already know the background fairy tale.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who needs a good smile, because they will laugh, as they read both perspectives from, essentially, the same poem!

Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems
by Marilyn Singer
illustrated by Josee Masse
Published by Dial
February 2013

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