Most of the titles on ballet for little girls deal with the motivation to dance or the artistic expression of ballet, rather than the particulars of what happens in class and specific dance movements. Brandenberg (Chop, Simmer, Season, 1997, etc.) fills this gap with a simple first-person story about a girl named Mina, who dreams of dancing so well that she will feel as though she is flying. She gets ready for class, describing her dance attire, and then goes through an entire session with the basic ballet positions and movements. The movements are illustrated with the clever device of the ballet teacher on the left-hand page (with the French term and English pronunciation under the illustration) and a beginning dance student attempting the same movement on the right-hand page, defining the term within the text. Brandenberg’s watercolor-and-ink illustrations have a naïve charm well suited to her slightly chubby children (including two boys), who are obvious beginners with lots to learn. This simple introduction will work well to prepare younger children before starting lessons or to reinforce the concepts taught in every beginning ballet class. (Picture book. 3-6.)
Pub Date: May 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-029549-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ehrhardt offers her version of the classic song, “This Old Man,” with a few surprises. Ten two-page spreads update the sing-along favorite, each of the first nine devoted to a different jazz legend, from Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong to Charlie “Bird” Parker to John Burks “Dizzy” Gillespie to Charles Mingus and others. (On number ten, naturally, they jam.) In addition to the revision of the verses themselves—“He plays solo with his sticks / With a bomp-bomp! Bubbuda-bomp!” for example—additional scat phrases dance across the pages in a riot of color. Brief, concise biographies of the nine jazz men are a bonus surprise at the end (although they won’t be accessible to the very young target audience). Roth’s illustrations, in mixed-media collage and printmaking on watercolor paper, fill the pages with interesting shapes and multiple colors. His nifty patterned outfits for the jazz men get prime exposure when they take a bow after their jam session. Slight but snappy. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-15-205307-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
Lester’s Tacky is tacky, though he is even more a Society of Oddfellows unto himself, a pleasing misfit among his righteous penguin cohort of Goodly, Lovely, Angel, Neatly and Perfect. Tacky is joyously oblivious of their rectitude as they prepare for the penguin Winter Games, pumping iron and skipping rope as Tacky catches a few zzz’s and equips his exer-cycle with a horn and tassels, chows pizza and donuts as the others dutifully swallow their spinach (and Munsinger is perfect here, easily capturing both sniffyness and unbridled appetite). Tacky unintentionally subverts the rules of the Games, winning but losing as officials disqualify his unorthodox stratagems. Finally, his team grabs a victory despite the fact that Tacky ate the baton. A citizen of the deep cold, it’s another Frost that Tacky emulates, the one who recommends the road not taken. Tacky, the clueless role model, takes it all the time. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-55659-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walter Lorraine/Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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