Below Where We Go

Below where we go, things grow.  Below where we go, other objects move and go.  Below where we go, there are things for us to know.  Let's search.  Let's seek.  Come along and take a peek.

There is much to investigate above the planet's surface but take away mere inches or dig down miles; secrets are revealed, seeds and roots send signals, animals of all sizes build and burrow, manmade transportation travels, and portions of the earth flow, shift and shake.  Thunder Underground (Wordsong, an imprint of Highlights, March 28, 2017) poems by Jane Yolen with illustrations by Josee Masse welcomes readers to wonder about that which is not readily seen, heard, tasted, touched or smelled.  Whether read silently or aloud these twenty-one poems take us on a joyous journey of discovery.

UNDER
---ground
Beneath our feet,
a world apart,
is found our Earth's
fast-beating heart.  ...

In this first poem we pay tribute to the life-giving forces underground.  We are also asked to gather wise words creating a foundation for us to expand our understanding.  Basements are a good place to start; sending electricity and heat to our homes and storing food and memories.

Did you know scientists have heard corn converse?  Perhaps they are talking about the noise made by beetles wishing they were as quiet as ants.  Maybe they are marveling about the earthworm casseroles made by the moles.

Stepping into cities and down the stairs to subways, we speed from place to place.  Other dark corridors here hold mechanical parts which keep the body of the city breathing.  From here we venture back to the countryside to contemplate Three Things I Know About The Roots Of Trees.

If we move dirt, we'll make holes into history; lost cities, lost treasures, lost species.  Time covered them for us to find.  Our Earth never sleeps; hot to the core, waiting for the next event.  What will it make for us to explore?


For decades her work has been a huge part of my reading life; picture, middle grade and adult books.  Her words, carefully chosen, never stay on the page but come out to surround you, pushing aside the here and now and forming a new world.  Jane Yolen uses language like a potter does clay.  She is a master.  In this title each poem stands alone but is also a part of the collective whole.

She creates beats with rhymes on every other line, she makes word lists like links in the strongest poetic chain, she fashions metaphors, and she composes onomatopoeia and alliteration.  She presents the world to us through a different lens.  Here are two portions of two poems.

OH, TO BE AN ANT
...
Their mega-city
cambered, chambered,
tied by endless highways,
byways made by workers,
hauling dirt four times
their weight.
Not architected by one will,
but thousands working,
                never
                        still. 

SUBWAY
I like the sound the subway makes
deep in its underground den.
I like the growling as it goes
from street to street,
               and then
I like the squeals its iron wheels
make coming 'round again. ...


Charming is a word which comes to mind when first looking at the opened matching dust jacket and book case.  The underground scene stretches over the spine to the far left with a fox hidden in foliage watching the children.  I already know what younger readers will do when they see the rabbits snug and cozy in their warren.  The color in the boy's pants and the girl's dress is the hue used on the opening and closing endpapers.

Rendered in mixed media Josee Masse continues her under and above ground portrayals on the title page featuring a mother fox above two pups nestled but lively below her.  With a page turn the level of the ground continues to the verso and contents pages.  Ants still crawl along the top edge and bones and stones litter the layers of dirt.  A shovel rests against the base of a hole which holds the text for the contents.  On the far right at the top, the mother fox pushes dirt into the hole with a back paw.

Josee Masse enhances the words of Jane Yolen with her attention to detail and visual storytelling skills.  Readers will enjoy watching the girl and boy as they first gather items in the basement to use in their explorations.  With every poem, stop they make, they learn and gather more.  Sometimes we are given a larger view of where they go or we move in closely with them absent from the scene as in the case of the beetles, ant and earthworm poems.  We only know they are there from the flashlight shining above one of the ant hills.  It's fun to look for them and their companions in each picture.  All of the images span two pages.

One of my favorite of several illustrations highlights two mole poems.  Half of the image shows tunnels underground housing stashes of worms with three moles moving about and babies curled in a little hole.  Off to the right a mother rabbit sleeps with two little ones.  Above ground on the left the boy is reaching down to touch one of the mole's noses with his finger.  On the far right we see the girl's red boots, legs and part of her skirt.  A little rabbit is looking up at her.  Plants and grass are growing along with top with roots reaching into the ground.  A page turn reveals how Masse continues this scenario.


Readers will be actively engaged in the poems and illustrations found in Thunder Underground written by Jane Yolen with illustrations by Josee Masse.  Creativity abounds as we venture under the ground.  At the conclusion of the book, Jane Yolen includes Notes On The Poems: Both Scientific And Personal.  You will want to add this title to your personal and professional bookshelves.  It's guaranteed to promote further research and poetic writing.

To learn more about both Jane Yolen and Josee Masse please visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.  You can find more information about Josee Masse here.  Jane Yolen is interviewed at Reading Rockets.

Long Ago Tales Told

We are stories.  As long as there have been people there have been stories of every form and size.  They define us as individuals and as complete cultures.  They help us to make sense of those things having no apparent explanation.  They keep us grounded and allow us to soar into the cosmos.

In ancient Greece a body of literary work, their myths, was a form of religion for many.  The gods and goddesses were studied and worshiped.  Heroes and heroines and their acts were woven into the fabric of these stories.  In their third partnership, author and poet Marilyn Singer and illustrator Josee Masse, offer readers another collection of poetry.  Echo Echo: Reverso Poems about Greek Myths (Dial Books for Young Readers, February 16, 2016) are fourteen poems in pairs, eleven showcasing couples, a twelfth about a woman who released woes into the world and two others opening and closing the stories within.

An Age of Marvelous Myths

Ancient Greece:
An age of marvelous myths,
gone, but not forgotten.
Heroes that rise and fall. ...

...Heroes that rise and fall,
gone, but not forgotten.
An age of marvelous myths:
Ancient Greece.

As our eyes read the words left, top to bottom, and right, top to bottom, two columns and two poems, their order inverted, meanings shift.  Points of view may change along with the speakers.   We find ourselves speculating about the altered circumstances.

We come to understand why, regardless of an admonishment, Pandora's curiosity overcame her good sense but in turn something prompted her to hold hope.  In this instance wisdom overcame weakness.  After a competition an angry loser turns her opponent into a spider, a mighty ruler's touch creates value except in the one thing he treasures most, and a warrior wins a battle no one could possibly win; these three show us the imperfections in mortals, immortals and monsters.

In flight two fall, one eager for glory and the other failing to heed words of wisdom.  Love fades, love fashions life, loves races to victory, love cheats death and loses to death again.  A single thread saves one and a succession of fourteen others.

Gods and Mortals
These myths
make sense of
the world.
We--- ...

...We,
the world,
make sense of
these myths.


As in the previous two titles readers will be astounded at the consummate skill of Marilyn Singer in writing thoroughly unique poems using the same words, reversed in order, with punctuation and capitalization changes alone.  She portrays the soul of these myths with her exquisite selection of words, each line's length unfolding the events with intention.  Her understanding of the myths through research is highly evident.  For readers not familiar with a particular story at the bottom of each set of poems, she includes a brief explanation.


On the matching dust jacket and book case Josee Masse presents readers with a color palette she continues to use throughout the title, hues of blue, white, greens and shades of golden yellow and orange.  The image on the front depicts ancient Greece on the top and modern times on the bottom.  This is the illustration for the first poem, with the bottom becoming the top.  To the left, on the back, text and images highlight the first two reverso books. On the opening and closing endpapers two different shades of the golden yellow and orange are used.

Rendered with Liquitex Acrylic on Strathmore 500 series bristol sheet---2-ply vellum the illustrations are as fluid and flawless as the poetic stories they interpret.  Fine lines, exquisite detail and the interplay of shadow and light are breathtaking.  Each picture is two wholes becoming one, a mirror of the two reverso poems on the opposite page.  They are separate but they overlap at the same time.  Without hesitation we are requested to stop and look at every single one.

My favorite image is for the poems Arachne and Athena.  On the left the predominant color is golden.  On the right it is blue.  We see two rooms with arched doorways on the far left and far right.  A single tapestry joins the goddess Athena (on the left) holding her spear with an owl depicted on her side of the weaving and Arachne (on the right), her portion of the fabric a spider web.  Beneath her attire are the legs of a spider.  Their facial features express the anger of one and the fear of the other.


Echo Echo written by Marilyn Singer with illustrations by Josee Masse is a beautiful volume of this singular style of poetry.  With the popularity of Greek myths, this will find a ready audience.  They can most assuredly be enjoyed silently but when you read them aloud you are transported back in time.  You will want to have this book on both your personal and professional shelves.  An author's note at the back offers further information about Greek myths, reverso poems and several resources.

To learn more about Marilyn Singer and Josee Masse and their other work please use the links attached to their names to access their websites.  If you wish to use an educator's guide for all three books please follow this link.  Marilyn Singer writes about reverso poems and her three titles at Brightly.

Who's Talking Now?

In the land of fairy tales expect the unexpected.  In the world of poetry anticipate the unanticipated.  When fairy tales and poetry meet anticipate the unexpected; relish the shifts in perspective, giving voice to those previously silent.

In 2010 author Marilyn Singer introduced a new poetic form, the reverso.  In her title Mirror, Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse (Dutton Children's Books) for the first time we read two poems side by side (the reverso); same words in each but on the left we read from top to bottom, on the right using the same order from bottom to top.  The only alterations were in punctuation and capitalization.  She put a whole refreshing spin on fairy tales we thought we knew.

Last month a companion title, Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems (Dial Books for Young Readers, February 7, 2013), illustrated again by Josee Masse was released.  Twelve folktales accompanied by an introduction and conclusion are altered with Marilyn Singer's special brand of vision.  She leads and we follow...follow.


...so here goes:
I beg your pardon---
fairies helped.

Fairies helped?
I beg your pardon!
So, here goes   ...

Readers are challenged to see both sides of wishing, the nakedness of an emperor, a princess who may or may not laugh, and the mindset of Aesop's most famous racers.  The test to find a real princess, the choice to loose your voice to gain love, the bravado of a cat and the consequences of a debt unpaid take you down and then up again, always changing the outcome.  Sometimes we read the words of more than one character.  Decisions we never understood before are revealed through a single person's musings.

Have you ever stopped to consider how the mole might feel down in his hole, alone?  Or the third pig in his house of bricks at the demise of the greedy wolf?  What of the emperor who discovers nearly too late the true worth of song?  As a soldier sleeps, princesses wish him slumber but a father wishes him awake.


With each reading of these fourteen reverso poems your admiration can't help but grow at the adept use of language, the placement of words to form two distinct interpretations of a single tale.  It's hard to imagine the time, the care, needed to get every single syllable in its perfect position.  When read silently it gently touches, but read aloud the rhythm of each is prevalent and strong.  Marilyn Singer's creativeness, her gift, shines in this inventive style.


Bright, lush colors beckon to readers from the front cover and jacket.  The artistic, skillful blending of two visuals into a complete illustration, used for each, poem begins here.  Spring green endpapers match the greens used in the title page visual.  Wide two-tone pale blue stripes, the background for the title page, verso and dedication page, are widened to showcase the two poems of each reverso.  

It's easy to move into the realm of make-believe through the pictures rendered in acrylics by Josee Masse.  Shades and hues, striking color palettes, especially blues, greens, golds and reds, add a richness to the verses.  The tiniest of details within the layers extends interest; the snail beside the tortoise, the odorous fish coming out of the cat's bag, and the portraits of the two pigs on pig three's wall.  Royal purple endpapers fittingly close this volume.


Words inviting wisdom, creating wonder, penned with purpose on the pages of Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer are elevated by the rich pictorial portrayals of illustrator, Josee Masse.  Readers will be drawn to the magic of the reverso; its ability to capture and convey every nuance known or unknown about these tales.  Of equal beauty are the two poems opening and closing the collection; author reflections on writing, fairies and children.

Singer includes a short explanation of the reverso as well as each tale on the final page. Links to her site and Josee Masse are embedded in their names.