Dizzy in Your Eyes

                                                                          Book Review:


Bibliography-

Mora, P. (2010). Dizzy in your eyes. Knopf Books for Young Readers.

ISBN 0375843752


Plot Summary- 

An original collection of poems, each with a different teen narrator sharing unique thoughts, moments, sadness, or heart’s desire: the girl who loves swimming, plunging into the water that creates her own world; the guy who leaves flowers on the windshield of the girl he likes. Each of the teens in these 50 original poems, written using a variety of poetic forms, will be recognizable to the reader as the universal emotions, ideas, impressions, and beliefs float across the pages in these gracefully told verses.


Critical Analysis-

This is a collection of fifty poems about love, shared and unrequited, some lasting a moment and some lasting a lifetime. Love for a pet, a sport, music, and love for a boyfriend, girlfriend, family or our world. The poems explore the intensity, pain, and beauty that love brings. Starting with a first crush to love’s bloom, and from breakup catastrophe to starting over. Love is an experience that makes us think. It can make us look at someone and feel dizzy in his/her eyes. The experiences are described through everyday people's jotting down of words, some in familiar languages, others are foreign. Some poems follow regular methods of rhyming, while others use less recognized forms. Each poem, despite their differences, expresses one thing, love. It reminds us that love is both simple and complicated, and that everyone can experience its effects. The poet’s voice is multifaceted, tender, humorous and joyful but also profound. Poetry can be interpreted in many ways, and while subtexts provide some guidance, the poems are left to the reader's discretion. This collection could be read in one sitting or more than one, revisited again and again. The poems are complemented by abstract designs of circles, rectangles and other geometric shapes. Also included are the author’s footnotes on the different types of poetic forms used to help showcase it’s accessibility, which makes this a perfect classroom tool for teachers as well as an inspiration to readers who might want to be writers themselves.


Review Excerpts-

Americas Award

“Wonderfully written book of poems for children as well as adults - and the child still inside us.”--Kirkus starred review

“This fun collection of love-themed poetry by award-winning Latina author and literacy activist/advocate Pat Mora goes down bittersweet, the way love does.”—Booklist starred review


Connections-

-Students can watch a video interview of author Pat Mora discussing the power of poetry: TeachingBooks | Author & Book Resources to Support Reading Education

-Students can consider cultural representation in the text with venn diagrams and guided reflection prompts that encourage them to consider the familiar and unfamiliar from their reading.

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