Author: Jeannie Baker
Illustrator/Photographer: Jeannie Baker
Publisher and Year: Candlewick Press, 2010
Number of pages: 48
Tags: Culture, Family, Realistic Fiction, Jamal Jackson, k-5,
Genre: Realisitic Fiction
Analysis:
Mirror is a wordless picture book that uses pictures to go through a day in the life of two families. The families are in two different parts of the world, Australia and Morocco, but live lives that mirror one another. The book is set up where Australia is on the left and Morocco is on the right, but each page on the left has a corresponding page on the right. By the end of the story, it is apparent that the families live very much the same but have some differences mostly in culture.
When it comes to picture book codes there are not any that apply to my knowledge. However the Ideologies that are being communicated come across very well. The purpose of the book is to serve as both a mirror and a window to children in Morocco and in Australia. Because of the setup of the story, a reader from either location would be able to see their own lifestyles reflected back to them on one side and a view of what the life of someone in a different part of the world also lives like. The ideology being communicated is that even though people may have different cultures and customs, regardless of where they are from many families have very similar life styles. Although the city family goes to a mall and there aren’t any in Morocco, they are not much different than the Moroccan family as they also have an outlet market.
In the authors note, Baker mentions that she wrote this book during a time where politics put allthing foreign in a negative light. Her goal is to change or at least help combat that sentiment. Through her text she is able to accomplish that. It is also important to mention the function of the books pages being parallel and mirrored of one another. Literally saying that we live two sides to the same story.