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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Looking through her antique mirror, 13-year-old Jo discovers that she can see into Louisa's world, a world many years before her time. To her surprise, Jo discovers that it is also possible for her and Louisa to step through the mirror into one another's time.
'At first, the mirror is a source of wonder and delight, but the two girls quickly discover that they must alter the past so they can avoid a catastrophe in the present.
'While they struggle through the layers of space and time, Jo discovers Nicholas - a boy whose identity is a mystery - living in Louisa's time. Captivated by each other, Jo and Nicholas work together to save their friends and to find a way of spanning time so they can remain together. (Publication summary)
Notes
-
Based on the Network Ten television series.
-
Prequel to Mirror, Mirror II by Elizabeth Dewar.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Related Works
-
form
y
Mirror, Mirror
Posie Graeme-Evans
,
( dir. Sophia Turkiewicz
et. al. )agent
Rosewood
New Zealand
:
Millennium Pictures
Gibson Group
,
1995
Z1844241
1995
series - publisher
film/TV
fantasy
young adult
When fourteen-year-old Jo Tiegan is given an antique mirror by a mysterious antique-shop owner in 1995, she finds she can travel through the mirror's surface into her bedroom as it was in 1919. She and the house's previous occupant, Louise Iredale, become firm friends, but find themselves caught up in two interlocking mysteries: the presence of a container of toxic chemicals in Louise's neighbour's well (which seriously injures two of Jo's classmates during an archaeological excavation in 1995) and the entrapment of Nicholas Romanov (the Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich) by Louise's neighbour, who has smuggled him out of Russia in the hopes of selling him to the highest bidder.
Mirror, Mirror was a co-production between Australian-based Millennium Pictures (founded five years earlier by show creator Posie- Graeme-Evans) and New Zealand-based Gibson Group.
The program was successful and highly awarded, and was followed two years later by a loose sequel, which shares nothing with the original series but the basic premise of time travel through a mirror.
-
y
Mirror, Mirror II
Rydalmere
:
Hodder Headline
,
1998
Z113421
1998
single work
novel
young adult
fantasy
Works about this Work
-
y
Re-Visiting Historical Fiction for Young Readers : The Past through Modern Eyes
New York (City)
:
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
,
2011
Z1886683
2011
single work
criticism
'This study is concerned with how readers are positioned to interpret the past in historical fiction for children and young adults. Looking at literature published within the last thirty to forty years, Wilson identifies and explores a prevalent trend for re-visioning and rewriting the past according to modern social and political ideological assumptions. Fiction within this genre, while concerned with the past at the level of content, is additionally concerned with present views of that historical past because of the future to which it is moving. Specific areas of discussion include the identification of a new sub-genre: Living history fiction, stories of Joan of Arc, historical fiction featuring agentic females, the very popular Scholastic Press historical journal series, fictions of war, and historical fiction featuring multicultural discourses.
Wilson observes specific traits in historical fiction written for children — most notably how the notion of positive progress into the future is nuanced differently in this literature in which the concept of progress from the past is inextricably linked to the protagonist's potential for agency and the realization of subjectivity. The genre consistently manifests a concern with identity construction that in turn informs and influences how a metanarrative of positive progress is played out. This book engages in a discussion of the functionality of the past within the genre and offers an interpretative frame for the sifting out of the present from the past in historical fiction for young readers.' (Publisher's blurb)
-
Living History Fiction
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , vol. 20 no. 1 2010; (p. 77-86) 'During my research into historical fiction for children and young adult readers I came across a range of texts that relied on a living or lived experience of history to frame the historical story. These novels were similar to the time-slip narrative; however, not all examples used the traditional convention of time-slippage. I wanted to bundle these novels together - 'time-slip' novels included - as examples of 'living history' narratives because they appeared from the outset as a distinct literary form requiring particular reading strategies.
These texts, which I will refer to as Living history novels, require readers to align uncritically with modern perception. Readers are persuasively invited to assume that the modern characters' perception of the past is authentic because it has been formed by a lived experience of history. In Living history novels, readers are positioned to perceive both the strengths and weaknesses of past and present times, ultimately reconciling the two in a present that faces chronologically forwards. Modern focalising characters in Living history fiction place modern perception in a superior relationship to that of the past.
This sub-genre of historical novels is distinctive in its strong and consistent modern character focalisation and point of view. The Living history novel creates a confluence of past and present, be it physically or psychically. Characters are variously conveyed from a generalised present, or past, to an explicit historical period or event. The Living history novel is distinctive in its intense character introversion, quest journey and self-discovery. The most important outcome of the living history experience is that characters learn something significant about themselves. Because the story is about the modern character's quest and self realisation, the past is consistently perceived from their point of view. Modern characters are transported in time and readers are only rarely invited to see the past from a past point of view' (Author's abstract). -
Untitled
1997
single work
review
— Appears in: Viewpoint : On Books for Young Adults , Winter vol. 5 no. 2 1997; (p. 43)
— Review of Mirror, Mirror : An Adventure Through Time 1996 single work novel
-
Untitled
1997
single work
review
— Appears in: Viewpoint : On Books for Young Adults , Winter vol. 5 no. 2 1997; (p. 43)
— Review of Mirror, Mirror : An Adventure Through Time 1996 single work novel -
Living History Fiction
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , vol. 20 no. 1 2010; (p. 77-86) 'During my research into historical fiction for children and young adult readers I came across a range of texts that relied on a living or lived experience of history to frame the historical story. These novels were similar to the time-slip narrative; however, not all examples used the traditional convention of time-slippage. I wanted to bundle these novels together - 'time-slip' novels included - as examples of 'living history' narratives because they appeared from the outset as a distinct literary form requiring particular reading strategies.
These texts, which I will refer to as Living history novels, require readers to align uncritically with modern perception. Readers are persuasively invited to assume that the modern characters' perception of the past is authentic because it has been formed by a lived experience of history. In Living history novels, readers are positioned to perceive both the strengths and weaknesses of past and present times, ultimately reconciling the two in a present that faces chronologically forwards. Modern focalising characters in Living history fiction place modern perception in a superior relationship to that of the past.
This sub-genre of historical novels is distinctive in its strong and consistent modern character focalisation and point of view. The Living history novel creates a confluence of past and present, be it physically or psychically. Characters are variously conveyed from a generalised present, or past, to an explicit historical period or event. The Living history novel is distinctive in its intense character introversion, quest journey and self-discovery. The most important outcome of the living history experience is that characters learn something significant about themselves. Because the story is about the modern character's quest and self realisation, the past is consistently perceived from their point of view. Modern characters are transported in time and readers are only rarely invited to see the past from a past point of view' (Author's abstract). -
y
Re-Visiting Historical Fiction for Young Readers : The Past through Modern Eyes
New York (City)
:
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
,
2011
Z1886683
2011
single work
criticism
'This study is concerned with how readers are positioned to interpret the past in historical fiction for children and young adults. Looking at literature published within the last thirty to forty years, Wilson identifies and explores a prevalent trend for re-visioning and rewriting the past according to modern social and political ideological assumptions. Fiction within this genre, while concerned with the past at the level of content, is additionally concerned with present views of that historical past because of the future to which it is moving. Specific areas of discussion include the identification of a new sub-genre: Living history fiction, stories of Joan of Arc, historical fiction featuring agentic females, the very popular Scholastic Press historical journal series, fictions of war, and historical fiction featuring multicultural discourses.
Wilson observes specific traits in historical fiction written for children — most notably how the notion of positive progress into the future is nuanced differently in this literature in which the concept of progress from the past is inextricably linked to the protagonist's potential for agency and the realization of subjectivity. The genre consistently manifests a concern with identity construction that in turn informs and influences how a metanarrative of positive progress is played out. This book engages in a discussion of the functionality of the past within the genre and offers an interpretative frame for the sifting out of the present from the past in historical fiction for young readers.' (Publisher's blurb)
Awards
- 1996 joint winner Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction — Young Adult Division — Best Novel
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