Mirror Mirror: a Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer

This one wins the prize for the most clever poetry book of the year. In this book the author writes a free verse poem (really, just a few well crafted sentences) that can then be read with the lines of the poems in reverse order. The first poem tells about a fairy tale from one character's point of view, and the other (the reverse one) tells the story from another character's point of view. No kidding. For example, in the poem about Red Riding Hood, the last few lines of the first poem say,"picking berries to eat-/juicy and sweet/what a treat!/ But a girl/mustn't dawdle./ After all, Grandma is waiting." and then the first few lines of the next poem (the Wolf's poem) "After all, Grandma's waiting./mustn't dawdle.../But a girl!/ What a treat-/juicy and sweet./picking berries to eat." Isn't that wicked? The illustrations are cool, too. They are each divided in half, each half showing one of the points of view, but still related to each other. If I were to actually purchase a poetry book this year for myself, this is the one I would buy.