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| Roots Grow Backwards: Visions in Midwestern Poetry & Photographs
| | Jamie S. Smith
| Roots Grow Backwards is a surprise.
The reader's experience is delightfully nontraditional: At first glimpse, the book's stunning photographs and presentation trigger curiosity and a touch of fascination. Next comes an inkling, then an absorbing realization of the connections between different poems and photos. Though the subjects zigzag from everyday events to less frequent personal struggles, what seem at first to be unrelated poems and pictures grow page by page into the story of a Midwestern family-and ultimately all families.
Told by a mother and two daughters from three different viewpoints in poetry and exquisite photographs, the book is sometimes funny, frequently revealing, always honest, and ultimately spellbinding. The individual works weave together and build in emotional intensity until they coalesce in a celebration of connections that transcend the differences between generations-and especially between parent and child.
Approachable but not shallow, this story in poems and pictures works on different levels for readers at all levels. Simply put: you don't need a degree in literature to enjoy it, but you'll still enjoy it if you have one. Even before the send-off on its final page, Roots Grow Backwards has become an unexpected-and unforgettable-part of the reader.
The book cuts across the usual genres: For personal reflection; or as a gift to honor accomplishments and contributions-from Mother's Day, to graduation, through New Year's Day and in between; or even to read aloud as a one-of-its-kind bedtime story, Roots Grow Backwards is worth experiencing-and sharing-until the pages show wear and the photos lookfamiliar and lines from the poems crop up in conversation . . . .
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