Ride, Roll, Run: Time for a Fun Giveaway!

Happy Halloween to all who celebrate! No tricks from me today, but I do have a treat -- a giveaway of the fabulous new picture book Ride, Roll, Run: Time for Fun! by Valerie Bolling and Sabrena Khadija! Leave a comment at the end of this post to enter, and make sure to subscribe to the comments to find out the results. I'll choose a random winner when the giveaway closes at 11:59 pm EST on November 7th!

Children's author Valerie Bolling burst onto the scene in 2020 with her debut picture book, Let's Dance!, using joyful rhythm and rhyme to celebrate dance and diversity around the world. Her new picture book, Ride, Roll, Run: Time for Fun! is another joyful ode to childhood, this time celebrating community and friendship. And...as you can tell from the title...it's full of movement! 

The book begins just as a school day ends, and a diverse group of students make their way into the neighborhood for a fun afternoon. They play on skateboards, bikes, and jungle gyms. They make music and dance, play double dutch, and shoot hoops. They partake in nearly every activity you might imagine children would enjoy outside in the streets!

The beautiful digital art by Sabrena Kadija adds a retro flair to the book. Maybe it's the color palette, or the big-rimmed glasses some of the children are wearing, but the art combined with the concept of the book transports me back to my own childhood....to my own memories of playing outside with my brothers or other neighborhood kids for hours on end after school or on the weekends. 

Perhaps I am in a nostalgic mood, but reading this picture book also brings back memories of the many hours I spent watching Sesame Street as a child. The diversity, the childhood innocence, and all that neighborly love! 

Sesame Street holds a very special place in my heart, and now Ride, Roll, Run: Time for Fun! does, too!

So...I know I said "no tricks from me" at the beginning of this post, but I may have misspoke. I do have one little trick...I'll give you an extra entry in the giveaway if you answer this question in the comments: Which movement from the title of the book do you prefer? Riding? Rolling? Running?

Thanks for reading all the way through!

Few Words to Describe Flora and the Flamingo

I've actually been tweeting and posting on my Facebook page for a while about the new wordless, lift-the-flap picture book Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle. But, in case you missed all those posts, I'm going to blog about it, too. I finally got my hands on a copy of the book, courtesy of publisher Chronicle Books, and didn't want to miss this opportunity to mention it some more!

In the spirit of the wordlessness of the book, I've decided to summarize it in as few words as possible...

A little girl. A flamingo. Dance. Friendship. Fabulous!

But, if that is not enough and you must know more, I've included the book trailer (which is also wordless but set to classical music), followed by links to posts by other people about the book. So you can take their words for just how fabulous it really is!

Book Trailer

Book Reviews

A Fuse #8 Production (Betsy Bird)

Playing by the Book (Zoe Toft)

Sharpread (Colby Sharp)

There's a Book (Danielle Smith)

Interviews with Molly Idle

School Library Journal (Rick Margolis)

Watch. Connect. Read (John Schu)

Are You Having a Polar Bear Morning?

Read It. Move It. Share It. 
Each month I recommend a picture book for dance educator Maria Hanley to use in her creative movement classes in New York, and then we both share our experiences with the book. Polar Bear Morning by Lauren Thompson and Stephen Savage was our March pick. Read more about it here, and then hop over to Maria's Movers to see how Maria used the book with her students!

We don't get much snow where I live, but we did have the most beautiful snow of the season just a couple of weeks ago. I was initially worried about choosing another wintery book for my monthly collaboration with Maria, but I'm not feeling so bad anymore since so many of us had our fair share of cold "polar bear" mornings in March. 

Polar Bear Morning, written by Lauren Thompson with pictures by Stephen Savage, was published in January of this year by Scholastic Press. In the spirit of winter, the book's text is quite "cool" and calming, as is the color palette of gray, blue, and white with an occasional splash of orange, brown, or red.

The book's theme and structure remind me in some ways of the picture book Fluff and Billy, which Maria and I featured on our blogs in February. Both books are about friendship -- the friendship of two penguins in Fluff and Billy and of two polar bear cubs in Polar Bear Morning. Both also involve some follow-the-leader behavior as the sets of friends scamper and play in the snow. 

The language in the two books, however, is very different. Fluff and Billy is told in a very direct way, with few words. Polar Bear Morning provides much more description, detail, and imagery...

The morning is chill and bright.

From her cozy den, a polar bear cub peeks out 

at the snow and ice and clear blue sky. 

The little bear hears the seagull's faraway call.

She sees the sparkling snow. 

She clambers out into the day.

The imagery in the book is what makes it a good choice for creative movement in my mind. Even in the opening lines, words like "cozy" and "sparkling" and "clambers" make me want to move in new and interesting ways. I hope they inspire others to move in new ways, too. I realize that small children might not know the meaning of words like "clamber" yet, but it's never to early to learn, right?

Another element of the book that might inspire movement is the reappearance of the seagulls, which are introduced in the book's opening lines. The gulls "call" out several times during the book, almost like they are asking the bear cubs to follow them. This makes me think that it would be fun to experiment with different sounds and how students respond to them in movement. In other words, what do the different sounds ask them to do? 

In many ways the book also lends itself well to partner dances. As I mentioned earlier, the polar bears do a lot of movements using a follow-the-leader format. But the illustrations also show them doing some movements together, especially at the end of the book when they really solidify their friendship. 

So many options for this book! Let's find out here which one Maria chose. And if you like Polar Bear Morning, you should also check out its award-winning companion Polar Bear Night -- another great choice for a creative movement class!

Follow the Leader with Fluff and Billy

Read It. Move It. Share It. 
Each month I recommend a picture book for dance educator Maria Hanley to use in her creative movement classes in New York, and then we both share our experiences with the book. Our February book was Fluff and Billy by Nicola Killen. When you're done reading about the book here on my blog, stop by Maria's Movers to see what kind of movement it can inspire!

When my girls were younger, they really liked to play follow the leader, and I sometimes used this to my advantage. At bedtime, I could usually get them to go upstairs for bed if I did some super silly moves going up our staircase and asked them to follow along.

Fluff and Billy, published a few months ago by Sterling Children's Books, is a book about friendship and overcoming disagreements. But what made me think it would be a great book for creative movement classes is that the text and illustrations also inspire a good game of follow the leader!

"I'm climbing up!" said Fluff.

"I'm climbing up!" said Billy. 

"I'm sliding down!" said Fluff. 

"I'm sliding down!" said Billy.

Fluff''s a little bigger than Billy, and he's the one who seems to be the leader. When he climbs and slides, Bill follows along. When he screams, swims, splashes, runs, and jumps, Billy follows along again. But, when Fluff decides to roll a snowball, Billy doesn't quite follow along. Billy decides to throw the snowball at Fluff, and it hits Fluff hard enough to knock him down.

Just like when young friends or siblings play together a lot of the time and then have a fight, Fluff and Billy don't talk to each other for a while -- or at least for a few spreads of the book! Eventually, though, they make up and the book ends on a happy note.

The illustrations of Fluff and Billy are darling, and I love the simplicity of the color palette that was used to create them -- shades of black and gray for their bodies and orangish red for their beaks and feet. The backgrounds on every page of the book are a mix of white, blue, and yellow. I love books that use unique fonts, and this book does that, too.

If you want to see a few of the spreads from the book, you can see them here on Nicola Killen's website. And if you're curious to see whether Maria played a game of follow the leader with her young students this month, I hope you'll check out her post here.

My girls are six and eight now, and I haven't tried follow the leader with them in a while. They are actually getting pretty good at going upstairs on their own and at least getting the bedtime process started. It might be fun to surprise them with another game of follow the leader up the staircase one of these days, though. And I might even have to follow it up with a reading of this delightful book!

Laura Numeroff's Dancing Jellybeans

Some of Laura Numeroff's most popular books are from the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie series. We actually own three of them and have even seen a theatre production of If You Give a Pig a Pancake. But did you know that Laura Numeroff has also co-written a book about dance?

The Jellybeans and the Big Dance is the first in a newish series by Laura Numeroff (author), Nate Evans (author), and Lynn Munsinger (illustrator). Here's what publisher Abrams Books for Young Readers has to say about the book:

Emily loves to dance and can't wait to meet the other girls in her class, who are sure to be just like her. But instead she meets Nicole, a tomboy who would rather be playing soccer; Bitsy, who loves arts and crafts; and Anna, a shy bookworm who has no interest at all in dancing. Realizing they have to work together to make their dance recital a success, the girls learn to love each other's differences and strengths as they band together and name their group the Jellybeans!

I would describe this book as sweet (not unlike jellybeans) in all respects. I love how the four characters learn to get along so well by the end of the book, despite the major differences in their personalities. On a related note, it's really cute how they come up with the name for their group:

"Jellybeans are all different flavors, but they still go well together," said Emily. "Maybe we could, too. We can be the dancing Jellybeans!"

The illustrations, too, are very sweet. Their colors blend together so nicely, and there are lots of them...at least two or three scenes on each spread. (As a writer, I have to admit that I often focus way too much on the words in picture books, even though the pictures are just as important. Having this blog is really teaching me to slow down and look closely at all the different components of a book.)

I also love the sparkly title and costumes on the cover. They add a nice touch that certainly makes me want to pick up the book. I'm sure little girls and boys won't be able to resist either. And if they like this book, they might also like the sequel, which was published in March of this year. It's called The Jellybeans and the Big Book Bonanza and looks very entertaining. It takes place in a library instead of a dance studio, but Emily's love for ballet is still apparent.

In the bios at the back of The Jellybeans and the Big Dance, the authors and illustrator each mention their favorite flavor of jellybean. I have to admit that I'm a little more into dark chocolate than jellybeans these days, but if I had to choose a jellybean flavor, I'd choose black licorice. How about you?

Make Room for Brontorina!

I received my first-ever review copy of a picture book today, and I am thrilled. I'm thrilled that a publisher (Candlewick Press in this case) was happy to send me a copy, and I'm thrilled that I enjoyed the book so much.

Brontorina, by James Howe (author) and Randy Cecil (illustrator), is the story of a dinosaur with an unlikely dream. But with good friends and a dedicated dance teacher by her side, Brontorina's dream becomes a reality. The biggest challenge along the way (besides finding some shoes that fit her!) is finding a space big enough for Brontorina to dance in.

In a note that came with my review copy, James Howe says that Randy Cecil's "palette, style, and sly sense of humor are a perfect match for my words, and--as happens with the best illustrators--he has created visually a world I could only see as a sort of half-formed dream as I wrote." I couldn't agree more that the text and illustrations of this book blend so well together that it is hard to tell which ideas were the author's and which were the illustrator's.

My review of Brontorina may be slightly biased since I am still overexcited that I received a copy for free, but when I read it to my unbiased three-year-old earlier tonight, she cried so much every time I tried to put the book away that I had to read it three times before she would settle down. She has always liked books, but this was not normal behavior for her. I think she just really really liked this book, too!

Brontorina may be big, but she eventually finds a space with enough room for dancing. I'm sure a lot of people will find room for Brontorina on their bookshelves, too. 

Bunnicula: A Rabbit Tale of Mystery was James Howe's very first book, published in 1979. I still have my own copy--yellowing pages and all--from when I was growing up. A 25th anniversary collection of the first three books in the Bunnicula series came out a few years ago. What a pleasant surprise to find out that the same James Howe who wrote one of my favorite childhood series is still writing books--and ones about dancing dinosaurs to boot!