Isadora (Peekaboo Morning, 2002, etc.) calls on her experience as a professional ballet dancer in this lighthearted look at the backstage world of a children’s ballet school. She divides her text into two sections: “Dreams and Practice” and “Makeup and Lights,” with each page containing two rhyming couplets and a related illustration, all printed on attractive beige paper. Young children (both boys and girls, age six to nine) who are fairly experienced dancers are shown dreaming about ballet, going to class, stretching, learning new movements, and then preparing backstage and performing. They also experience some of the difficulties of the dance world: body image, costumes that don’t fit, not being able to eat or drink while backstage, stage fright, and sore feet. Some adult readers will note that several of the children shown dancing in pointe shoes are clearly too young to be dancing on pointe, reinforcing that unrealistic expectation of little girls who can’t wait to be dancing on their toes. Isadora’s delicate watercolor-and-ink illustrations have the polish of a practiced professional, effectively showing the little dancers in motion or at rest. Her rhymes are sometimes funny or charming, but often don’t scan well or contain word pairs that really don’t rhyme (“sore” and “sure”). The illustrations dance, but the text remains pedestrian. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-399-23603-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The snappy text will get toes tapping, but the information it carries is limited.
Dancing is one of the most universal elements of cultures the world over.
In onomatopoeic, rhyming text, Bolling encourages readers to dance in styles including folk dance, classical ballet, breakdancing, and line dancing. Read aloud, the zippy text will engage young children: “Tappity Tap / Fingers Snap,” reads the rhyme on the double-page spread for flamenco; “Jiggity-Jig / Zig-zag-zig” describes Irish step dancing. The ballet pages stereotypically include only children in dresses or tutus, but one of these dancers wears hijab. Overall, children included are racially diverse and vary in gender presentation. Diaz’s illustrations show her background in animated films; her active child dancers generally have the large-eyed sameness of cartoon characters. The endpapers, with shoes and musical instruments, could become a matching game with pages in the book. The dances depicted are described at the end, including kathak from India and kuku from Guinea, West Africa. Unfortunately, these explanations are quite rudimentary. Kathak dancers use their facial expressions extensively in addition to the “movements of their hands and their jingling feet,” as described in the book. Although today kuku is danced at all types of celebrations in several countries, it was once done after fishing, an activity acknowledged in the illustrations but not mentioned in the explanatory text.
The snappy text will get toes tapping, but the information it carries is limited. (Informational picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63592-142-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An early reader that kids will want to befriend.
In an odd-couple pairing of Bear and Chipmunk, only one friend is truly happy to spend the day at the beach.
“Not me!” is poor Chipmunk’s lament each time Bear expresses the pleasure he takes in sunning, swimming, and other activities at the beach. While controlled, repetitive text makes the story accessible to new readers, slapstick humor characterizes the busy watercolor-and-ink illustrations and adds interest. Poor Chipmunk is pinched by a crab, buried in sand, and swept upside down into the water, to name just a few mishaps. Although other animal beachgoers seem to notice Chipmunk’s distress, Bear cheerily goes about his day and seems blithely ignorant of his friend’s misfortunes. The playful tone of the illustrations helps soften the dynamic so that it doesn’t seem as though Chipmunk is in grave danger or that Bear is cruel. As they leave at the end of the book Bear finally asks, “Why did you come?” and Chipmunk’s sweet response caps off the day with a warm sunset in the background.
An early reader that kids will want to befriend. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3546-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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