A hop, skip and a jump away from The Neighborhood Mother Goose (2003), Crews once again places classic nursery fare in the middle of bright, bustling Brooklyn streets. This time, however, she sets her sights on songs—34 of them, to be exact. Photos of joyful, ethnically diverse children found in playgrounds, parks and cozy home settings infuse well-known tunes (and some forgotten favorites) with warmth and energy. Many scenes are quite literal: “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” shows youngsters playing baseball in the park. Others have a playful twist: “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring” has a boy gleefully jumping atop the “old man” in bed (i.e. Daddy), with an appropriately rain-splotched window in the background. “London Bridge” is in fact a bridge built with wooden blocks, and “Alouette” shows a boy racing towards pigeons—the urban equivalent of a lark if ever there was one. Crews also offers familiar digital effects: “Miss Mary Mack” has elephants high in the sky, while “I’m a Little Teapot” shows a rather large teapot with tiny children climbing on it. Sheet music is not included, but an author’s note points readers to other books and online resources for help with the tunes. A collection that begs to be sung in all neighborhoods—city stoops or country front-porch swings alike. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-185063-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
A lively celebration of music and expressive dance.
The beat is all around her when a girl takes a walk in the park with her mother.
On a lovely summer day, a young African-American girl in a bright pink sundress and matching sneakers sees, smells, sings, claps and snaps her fingers to an internal rhythm. As a boom box plays its song and a drummer taps his beat, neighborhood children join her in an energetic, pulsating dance culminating in a rousing musical parade. Schofield-Morrison’s brief text has a shout-it-out element as each spread resounds with a two-word phrase: “I shook a rhythm with my hips. /SHAKE SHAKE”; “I tapped the rhythm with my toes. / TIP TAP.” Morrison’s full-bleed, textured oil paintings capture the joy of a mother and daughter in an urban park surrounded by musicians, food vendors and many exuberant children. Read this aloud with music playing loudly—not in the background. Morrison is a Coretta Scott King/New Talent Award winner, and this is a fine debut for his wife in their first collaboration.
A lively celebration of music and expressive dance. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61963-178-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat.
Dinos that love to move and groove get children counting from one to 10—and perhaps moving to the beat.
Beginning with a solo bop by a female dino (she has eyelashes, doncha know), the dinosaur dance party begins. Each turn of the page adds another dino and a change in the dance genre: waltz, country line dancing, disco, limbo, square dancing, hip-hop, and swing. As the party would be incomplete without the moonwalk, the T. Rex does the honors…and once they are beyond their initial panic at his appearance, the onlookers cheer wildly. The repeated refrain on each spread allows for audience participation, though it doesn’t easily trip off the tongue: “They hear a swish. / What’s this? / One more? / One more dino on the floor.” Some of the prehistoric beasts are easily identifiable—pterodactyl, ankylosaurus, triceratops—but others will be known only to the dino-obsessed; none are identified, other than T-Rex. Packed spreads filled with psychedelically colored dinos sporting blocks of color, stripes, or polka dots (and infectious looks of joy) make identification even more difficult, to say nothing of counting them. Indeed, this fails as a counting primer: there are extra animals (and sometimes a grumpy T-Rex) in the backgrounds, and the next dino to join the party pokes its head into the frame on the page before. Besides all that, most kids won’t get the dance references.
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
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