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Dear Book Lovers, Welcome! I am delighted that you have found The Through the Looking Glass blog. For over twenty years I reviewed children's literature titles for my online journal, which came out six times a year. Every book review written for that publication can be found on the Through the Looking Glass website (the link is below). I am now moving in a different direction, though the columns that I write are still book-centric. Instead of writing reviews, I'm offering you columns on topics that have been inspired by wonderful books that I have read. I tell you about the books in question, and describe how they have have impacted me. This may sound peculiar to some of you, but the books that I tend to choose are ones that resonate with me on some level. Therefore, when I read the last page and close the covers, I am not quite the same person that I was when first I started reading the book. The shift in my perspective might be miniscule, but it is still there. The books I am looking are both about adult and children's titles. Some of the children's titles will appeal to adults, while others will not. Some of the adult titles will appeal to younger readers, particularly those who are eager to expand their horizons.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Poetry Friday - A review of Pigmares


I could never watch scary movies when I was a child, because they always gave me nightmares. Many of my friends loved them though, and would talk at length about seeing movies where vampires sucked people's blood, and monsters lurked in nasty dark places.

In today's poetry title, Doug Cushman pays tribute to some of the most famous scary movies of all time, and he does so in a unique and very humorous way.

Doug Cushman
Poetry
For ages 7 to 9
Charlesbridge, 2012, 978-1-58089-401-2
It is nighttime, and a young pig is sitting up in bed watching monster movies on his little TV. After seeing “Dead zombies crawl out from foul-smelling places,” and “Vampire pigs fly from castles at night,” the young pig begins to realize that he should “never watch monsters on film before bed.”
   The monsters he is talking about include Frankenswine, a creature that is made up of “pieces and parts.” Feared by others because of his horrific appearance, Frankenswine runs away until he ends up alone and friendless on an Arctic ice floe.
   Then there is The Porker from the Black Lagoon, a terrible creature “with scaly claws and slimy snout.” This monster has disgusting habits, and it is terribly crabby to boot. Of course, one does have to consider that “it is hard to grin when every day / there’s water in your shorts.” Perhaps this monster is entitled to spells of bad temper.
   The Porker from the Black Lagoon is not the only monster that has to deal with dreadful living conditions. The Abominable Snow Pig lives in a place of perpetual cold, a frozen mountain in Tibet. His food is always cold, as are his hands and feet. Even the logs in his fireplace “are giant ice blocks.”
   In this deliciously clever collection of poems, Doug Cushman pays tribute to some of the most famous horror movies of all time, and he does so in a very humorous way. All the monsters in these poems are porcine in nature, and their stories, and the situations they get into, are deliciously funny and silly.
   At the back of the book the author gives his readers a little information about the real horror movies that inspired the poems.
   

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