Written by: Marilyn Singer
Illustrated by: Josee Masse
Recommended for: Children Ages 4-10
Themes: Fiction, Poetry, Fairy Tales/Fantasy
Summary:
This book is filled with wonderful poems about Fairy Tale characters, such as: Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and the Ugly Duckling. Each poem is acompanied by an second poem writen in reverse.
Children will enjoy reading each poem and then reading it then in reverse, often in the perspective of another character from the same fairy tale. In one poem you hear about Red Riding Hood's thoughts as she picks flowers, when the poem is them told in reverse you get the wolf's thoughts as he sees the young girl picking flowers. The illustrations are beautiful and not overly elaborate, reminicent of those from the fairytales that they know and love. The will be drawn to both the style of the poems and the characters of the poems.
Suggestions for the Classroom:
This would be a wonderful selection to use to introduce young children to poetry through the use of familiar fairytale characters. It is also an exciting twist on poetry to use with children in grades 2-5 to challenge them as writers.
*Pre-Reading Activities: Explain to children that not all poems have to have rhyming patterns. Often, we also refer to poems as a verse. Tell the children that today you are going to read them some unique verses that star some familiar characters. Tell them that you want them to see if they can figure out what is so special about the poems that you are going to read.
*During Reading: Refrain from asking the students questions, give them time to listen and see if they can identify that the second poem is written in reverse.
*Post-Reading: Ask if anyone has figured out what makes these poems special, if they are having trouble then show them the page as a hint. Once they get that the poems are written in reverse, share with them a few more of the selections (have them identify from which character's perspective each version is being told). You can then follow up this activity by challenging your students to write a reversible poem of their own.
About the Author:
Marilyn Singer writes picture books, novels for kids, poetry, non-fiction, fairy tales, fiction for young adults, and mysteries. She grew up on Long Island and has received dergrees form both Queens College and New York University in English and Communications. She began her career teaching High School English in New York City Schools but quickly began to making a career in writing and has since writen over 80 books for children and young adults. She feels that writing in so many different genres challenges her and keeps her from getting bored.
Marilyn currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband Steve; their standard poodle Oggi, seen in the home page photo; a cat named August ; two collared doves named Jubilee and Holiday; and a starling named Darling. Her interests include ballroom/Latin dancing, dog training, reading, hiking, bird-watching, gardening, playing computer adventure games, and going to the movies and the theatre. She's also a major Star Trek fan.
About the Illustrator:
Josee Masse lives in the country near Montreal, where she studied Graphic Arts. Josse has been drawing almost all of her life and worked as a Graphic Designer for three years before becoming an illustrator for children's books. She enjoys her job and tackling the challenges of conveying difficult subjects.
I love love love the idea of this story. Before I even saw your post I had the idea to do something a little like this for my children's book. My book would take the fairytale and make it so the characters were not so stereotypical. This book would be perfect to use in class when teaching about characters point of view. You could have the students read through a short story and then have them write the same story, but from the perspective of another character in the story. While writing they might find that the story comes out differently just because they changed the point of view. Awesome book choice!
ReplyDeleteI loved this book Courtney. I really don't think that I have ever seen reversible poems and these are really interesting. I love the fairy tale theme and it is great to get the perspective of different characters; it is great for compare and contrast. Great ideas, thanks for sharing!
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