Lora Hates Spam

by Mickie Mueller

This is one of the Tools of Witchcraft series from Llewellyn publishers. It starts out telling the history of mirrors in both physical form and use in folklore, plus superstitions regarding them. In this the author seems to have done a fair bit of research. My one issue with the first part is the frequent references to television programs I've never seen or heard of and the assumption of adolescent games that gives me a feeling that an American author is speaking to an American audience and assuming that these references will have meaning for anyone who reads her book. On the positive side, it gives the reader some insight into the culture the author is coming from.

There are a lot of good arts and crafts ideas for ways of making different kinds of mirrors or mirrored boxes and suggestions for washes. The washes are fairly traditional herbal combinations and I've noted a couple of them that I might actually use.

The writing style is bubbly in a way that made me think the author might be very young, though things she says later in the book indicate otherwise, and the spell suggestions would probably appeal to young people who watch The Craft and such. It did worry me that she didn't seem to know about the traditional wormwood paint used in making black mirrors, but otherwise there were several examples of how mirrors have been regarded magically in different cultures.

There were also some guest essays which got a little repetitive and gave me the impression they were for added page count, but some were interesting. Some general correspondences and such are in the appendices and there is a leaning towards chakras that people into new age subjects can identify easily.

This could be a good book for a young person just starting out on learning about magical tools and implements.