Starred Review for Publishers Weekly

Pairing lyrical poems and crisp photography to great effect, this collection is a gem. Each poem contains Yolen's response to a series of photographs that portray living things reflected in water. Stemple's photographs startle the reader with the extraordinary beauty of the ordinary things, and Yolen's poems are laced with humor (sometimes wry, sometimes overt) and with environmental undercurrents. Beside a portrait of blue wood storks, she offers, “How to double your population?/ Stand in water smooth as glass./ This is not mere speculation; Check the wood storks by the grass.” In “Jaws x 2 x 80,” an alligator's jaws are seen twice, “One pair/ is real,/ and one/ a reflection./ But I'll never/ give either/ a closer/ inspection.” The book's design—poem across from photograph, with bands of solid color along opposing edges—mimics the photographs' inherent symmetry, while leaving room for brief information about nature. The images and words resonate—readers will find themselves responding to Yolen's introductory invitation to “linger over these photos, contemplate the poems, see if together or separately they make you think again, make <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">you reflect.” Ages 10–12. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Apr.)

ALA Booklist

Water acts as a mirror in this picture book that combines short poems with full-page color photos of animals in the wild. As Yolen points out in a brief note, her son's photos show double images that will make readers see things in new ways. An alligator poised above its reflection in the water looks as if it has two heads. A gorgeous mirror image shows a solitary cockle in its shell. The poetic forms are well matched to the mood in the pictures. Accompanying a blurry, liquid image of a roseate spoonbill is a stirring, spare haiku: "Her only competition / Is her reflection." A photo catches a coyote standing "statue still," but both the poem and the image give the sense of the animal's leap into action that will follow the scene. Drawn by the rich play in words and pictures, kids will see reflections, strange and beautiful, in the natural world.

Horn Book

Each cleanly composed double-page spread features a well-reproduced nature photograph of an animal in or near water, a sometimes obtuse poem on the animal and its reflection, and some random captionlike information about the animal. The narrow subject lends a sameness to the whole, but readers may enjoy slowing down to reflect on the concept.

Kirkus Reviews

The title of this volume comes from Hamlet's instructions to the players that the "purpose of playing" is to mirror nature. And so is the purpose of the nature photographer and poet here. Stemple has photographed reflections in nature: seven wood storks with seven reflections, an alligator with a reflection that creates the illusion of a double jaw, a solitary cockle made less alone by its reflection. Yolen's brief poems personifying the animals face the full-page photographs like the reflections they describe. A note from the author encourages readers to let the photographs and poems be a cause for reflection, but the intended fun of the poems is, at times, undercut by the forced whimsy: "This perplexing little frog / Has popped up on a thrown-out bottle. / What does this mean? Perhaps a lotle." The pages and photographs are vibrant and lively, the poems best for reading aloud. Italicized captions on each poem's page add information about the pictured animal, making this a good volume—along with other titles by this mother-son team—for teachers wanting to connect science and poetry. (Poetry. 10-12)

School Library Journal

Gr 3-5 The mother-son duo offers another book of concept poetry, this time focusing on reflections found in nature. Yolen's dozen short verses are paired with Stemple's arresting photographs of raccoons, alligators, coyotes, and a number of water birds. As with Color Me a Rhyme (2000), Count Me a Rhyme (2006), and Shape Me a Rhyme (2007, all Boyds Mills), this book is an excellent complement to nature studies. As the author notes in her introduction, to reflect on something is to give it a second look and, perhaps, to see it in a new light. The final poem, "Crazy Legs," finds a snowy egret against a background of blue, its stick legs distorted in its watery reflection: "The egret's/Stark perfection/Now marked/By strange bisection./So bent, this odd/Direction/Demands a new/Inspection." Teachers and students should find this thoughtful combination of wordplay, nature factoids, and photographs worthwhile. Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA