Description

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An adopted teen's search for her birth mother is overshadowed by a wrenching loss, dramatically told through her poems and journals.

Lizzie McLane, the adopted poet-heroine of the widely acclaimed The Secret of Me, is now a high school senior, excited about her future: meeting boys, college, and finally finding her birthmother. Then, on the day a letter from her adoption agency arrives, her adoptive father unexpectedly dies. Lizzie, lost in grief, turns to alcohol and the wrong kind of friends, and her life begins to spiral out of control. Loved ones try to help, but only in her poems and journals can Lizzie make sense of the hurt and her relentless curiosity about her birthmother.



     I looked in the mirror . . .

     Who was that girl staring

     at me, blood on her blouse, black under her

     swollen eyes? I don't know you, I said out loud.

     I don't know you, she said back.


The Girl in the Mirror is a story about love and identity—brave, vulnerable, and compelling.

About the Author

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Meg Kearney is the author of The Secret of Me and The Girl in the Mirror. She has written two prize-winning poetry collections for adults and a critically acclaimed and popular picture book for children, Trouper  (Scholastic). Before becoming founding director of the low-residency MFA at Pine Manor College (Chestnut Hlil, MA), Kearney was Assoc. Director of the National Book Foundation, sponsor of the National Book Awards, for 11 years.

Praise For…

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[An] introspective novel in verse about grief and biological origins.....Kearney tenderly explores Lizzie's anger, sadness, and ambivalence about her identity as she grapples with whether to risk being hurt by the mother she never knew or to approach the future without first claiming her past.

— Publishers Weekly

Meg Kearney fully engages the reader in this very fine coming-of-age novel.
— Karen Hesse

Deeply felt poems….Fans of Helen Frost will admire the attention to both poetics and story.
— Kirkus Reviews

I love this book. It has honesty to the core; it is wonderfully written--poetry and commentary, both intense and personal.
— Paula Fox

This book is a generous gift.
— Naomi Shihab Nye

[A] gem of a book….eminently teachable….Unique…in its character portrayal of a real young adult with real emotions, and in its engaging openness...

— David Cappella