Richie's Picks: MIRROR by Jeannie Baker, Candlewick, November 2010, 40p.,
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4848-0
"People come in different sizes, colors, shapes, and names
'Though we're different on the outside, inside I think we're the same."
-- Peter Alsop, "The Kid's Peace Song"
"There are two boys and two families in this book. One family lives in a
city in Australia, and one lives in Morocco, North Africa. The lives of
the two boys and their families look very different from each other, and they
are different. But some things connect them just as some things are the
same for all families no matter where they live."
So reads the introduction to MIRROR by Jeannie Baker. The introduction is
written in English on the first page of the left-hand bound portion of the
book (the part of the book in which the pages turn from right to left). I
assume that the Arabic text on the first page of the right-hand bound
portion of the book says the same thing. (The pages in that part of the book
turn from left to right.) Apart from this introduction in two languages,
MIRROR is a wordless text, and one that speaks volumes.
Back in first grade, at an all-white suburban Long Island elementary
school, they divided our class into two groups. The other half learned a
Mexican hat dance. Our half of the class donned cone-shaped paper hats, held
paper lanterns, and practiced a Chinese dance. We eventually performed these
dances for our parents and other students during an assembly. I learned
from this process that Chinese people looked and dressed very different from
me; were stiff and weird; and walked around with lanterns.
(I also learned how pretty my classmate Debra Carney looked when wearing
makeup.)
As a result of my experience in first grade, I am always disappointed to
encounter programming or lessons that only portray differences in cultures
-- how strange things are elsewhere -- while failing to illuminate any of
the commonalities shared by people everywhere.
This desirable balance of diversity and commonality -- which helps achieve
a respecting, acknowledging, and understanding of differences between
cultures -- is exactly what is so vividly portrayed in MIRROR, a book I am
dying to get into the hands of today's first graders.
The manner in which one reads MIRROR is to put the book down and open the
cover; turn the top page on each side simultaneously (one to the left, the
other to the right); and begin exploring the depictions of the lives of the
two boys and their families within the side-by-side multi-paneled
illustrations.
Jeannie Baker has a unique style; her stunning and colorful collage
constructions are readily recognizable. Baker incorporates a good number of
details into her illustrations. I've watched young readers pour over the
detail-filled I SPY style books, and her eye-catching side-by-side illustrations
in MIRROR will be similarly attractive to young readers.
For instance, I love the spread where, on the left, we see customers
moving about a typical building materials retail warehouse-style establishment.
On the right, we drink in the details of an open air market from which one
can almost smell the wafting scents of spices in open bags on the ground
and fruit piled up; and hear the bleating of a lamb being held; of the
chickens restrained by strings attached to their legs; and of the conversations
ensuing.
We turn pages and witness meal times and sleep times and play times, and
through this process we perceive how inside we are the same. One can
readily imagine these two boys meeting up someday and kicking around a soccer
ball at a park.
The book's final spread depicts how the digital world of the 21st century
has enabled the Moroccan boy to learn what life in distant parts of the
planet on which he lives looks like.
Different and the same.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_
(http://groups.yahoo.com/middle_school_lit/)
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(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EcolIt/)
_http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/faculty/partingtonr/partingtonr.php_
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FTC NOTICE: Richie receives free books from lots of publishers who hope he
will Pick their books. You can figure that any review was written after
reading and dog-earring a free copy received. Richie retains these review
copies for his rereading pleasure and for use in his booktalks at schools
and libraries.
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