by Rachel Isadora & illustrated by Rachel Isadora ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 10, 2012
Enjoy and dance along.
It’s a delightful day at ballet class for preschooler Bea and her dance mates.
Isadora decorates Bea’s ponytails with pink ribbons and then introduces readers to the special clothing that boys and girls wear, the steps they practice and the studio where they dance. Readers can see the five basic positions, how feet point and flex and what fun leaping and landing “like a cat” can be. The narrative steps along smartly with just one or two sentences per page and speech bubbles for conversation. The children are outlined in black against white space, and their diversity shows through hair styles and facial features. A colorful array of leotards and dance shoes adds just the right touch of pizzazz. In one double-page spread, the boys and girls sit in a circle and clap hands as they listen to music, an activity that the nursery-school crowd will certainly recognize. Veteran author and illustrator Isadora has produced many wonderful stories of the ballet for young readers, including the Lili at Ballet series, and this one is as lovely and accomplished. Endowing the dancers with chubby legs and an occasional stumble just raises the irresistibility factor.
Enjoy and dance along. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: May 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25409-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
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by Connie Schofield-Morrison ; illustrated by Frank Morrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 3, 2014
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
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by Connie Schofield-Morrison ; illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon
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by Kelly Starling Lyons ; illustrated by Luke Flowers ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
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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