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)

Read & Romp Roundup -- April 2013

Welcome to the April -- albeit a little late -- Read & Romp Roundup! I'm so grateful to everyone who has been submitting posts since I started hosting the roundups more than a year ago. I hope you are all enjoying them as much as I am! Here we go...

Amy from Picture-Book-a-Day is back with a post about the picture book Brontorina by James Howe and Randy Cecil. Amy says this is one of her favorite ballet stories because it includes a diverse cast of characters that includes boys as well as girls, and because it emphasizes that dance is about expressing yourself and not about what you look like. Even a dinosaur can be a dancer!

At OMazing Kids, Angela features the picture book Perfect Square by Michael Hall, which she describes as a "perfect book for kids yoga." Read her post to see the book trailer, peek inside the book, and find out why Angela thinks this one is so special. And of course, check out her ideas for using the book in yoga classes for kids!

In this guest post on OMazing Kids, Jenny from Happy Planet Yoga shares a lesson plan for using the new picture book Rain! by Linda Ashman and Christian Robinson in yoga classes for kids. The post includes warm-up ideas, poses inspired by the book, games to play with partners, and a closing activity. Fun!

Maria from Maria's Movers shares her movement ideas to go along with the picture book Polar Bear Morning by Lauren Thompson and Stephen Savage. See how she explored the words peek, tumbling, scamper, whirl, toss, and flash with the little dancers she teaches!

Reshama at Stacking Books reviews the picture book The Raft by Jim LaMarche. While spending the summer at his grandmother's house, Nicky discovers a raft floating along the river and embarks on a journey to explore the surrounding woods. I can only imagine that the movement of the raft down the river and the movement of the animals that emerge from the woods are beautiful.

Up, Down, and Around in the Garden!

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 April book was Up, Down, and Around by Katherine Ayres and Nadine Bernard Westcott. Read about the book here and then stop by Maria's Movers to see how Maria used the book in her classes!

The sun has peeked out from behind the clouds a couple times this week, the tulips in our front yard are blooming, and the whole neighborhood is starting to smell like mulch -- all signs that it's time for gardening!

I have adored the rhyming picture book Up, Down, and Around since I first read it shortly after it was published in 2007. I don't actually own a copy, but I have read it with my girls many times and I am always happy when I see it on display at the library. 

It's the simple story of a man and two children who plant some vegetable seeds, watch them grow, pick the vegetables, and eat them! The story is told as if this all happens within a day's time, which is of course unrealistic but somehow makes the book especially charming... 

In the dirt we'll dig a row, 

drop some seeds, and watch them grow.

Dirt piles up; seeds go down.

Water splashes around and around.

Corn grows up.

Carrots grow down.

Cucumbers climb around and around.

The structure of the stanzas repeats over and over as readers learn how different garden vegetables grow...or at least in what direction they grow! Peppers, broccoli, and okra are other vegetables that grow up. Potatoes, beets, and onions are others that grow down (under the ground). And pumpkins, green beans, and tomatoes are others that grow around and around (on vines).

This book would be great for teaching preschoolers about the different ways vegetables can grow. And to be honest, I didn't even know that cucumbers and green beans grew on vines until I read this book! 

The extremely cheerful and colorful illustrations also make this book a winner. Illustrator Nadine Bernard Westcott even added a dog, a cat, a rabbit, birds, and lots of insects to the story to make it even more fun. I have to admit I'm not the most enthusiastic of gardeners, but this book makes even me want to get outside and grow some vegetables!

And of course I can't end my post without mentioning how great I think this book would be for a spring or summer dance class for preschoolers. "Up," "down," and "around" are all great words to explore with bodies (or with bodies and props), so I'm excited to see how Maria explored them in her creative movement classes. Click here to find out!

If you're in the mood for more picture books about gardening, Angela from OMazing Kids has posted a list of seed- and garden-themed books to use with children's yoga. Zoe at Playing by the Book has also gathered a list of books about gardening for kids. Happy gardening!

Join the April Read & Romp Roundup!

We had such a great Read & Romp Roundup last month. Let's make April just as great! If you have a recent (or even not so recent) blog post that involves picture books or children's poetry AND dance, yoga, or another form of movement, leave a link to your post in the comments below. I'll gather up all of the links and summarize them in a new post in a few weeks. If you're new here or aren't familiar with the roundup, you can read some of the old ones here. Can't wait to hear all of your ideas!

Submissions are open until Tuesday, April 30, 2013.

Paint Me a Poem: Poetry and Art...Plus Dance!

Since April is National Poetry Month and today is also Poetry Friday, I didn't want to miss the chance to post some more dance-related poems by my new friend Justine Rowden -- this time from her book Paint Me a Poem: Poems Inspired by Masterpieces of Art. 

A few years ago, when Justine was working at the National Portrait Gallery, she noticed that a lot of people had no reaction at all when they stood in front of a painting they hadn't seen before. This gave her an idea!

"I felt my first endeavor ought to be a book that proposes a way to look at any painting and find the spark, the joy, in that work," she says. "Forget historical references. Look for the passion in the art!" And thus her work began on Paint Me a Poem.

For the book, Justine chose 14 paintings from the National Gallery of Art and created poems to go along with them. "Each poem suggests just one possible way to look at that painting in a new way," she says. Here are a couple of my favorites, which both reflect Justine's love of dance. Yes, she is a kindred spirit!

Dancin'

Green Plums by Joseph Decker, c. 1885.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Green plums rolling
Yeah! rockin' and rollin'

Out of their box

Onto the stage

Ready to swing their stems,

Moving in rhythm

To a juicy tune. 

The beat, it gets to them--

Swaying side to side, 

They go even faster

Until finger-snapping hands 

Put them back in their box. 

Moving White Fluffs

Meadow by Alfred Sisley, 1875.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

The sky is full

Of fuzzy white polka dots.

As they move on, 

Do you think

Those dots are really

Dancing the polka

While they drift away?

Doing the polka

Takes time to learn

And where could they

Hear the music

To get the dance just right?

So, maybe it's not

The polka at all they're doing. 

Maybe it's just a slow glide 

They make up

As they go along. 

Then why do you suppose

They call them "Polka dots" --

Those funny white fluffs

In the blue, blue sky?

Beautiful poems, right? So what does Justine hope that children will take away from the book? "I would like to think that children will look at the paintings, really connecting with the art, and perhaps even write original poems about the paintings themselves,"she says. I hope that some adults have that reaction, too!

Find out more about Paint Me a Poem at www.paintmeapoem.com. Irene Latham at Live Your Poem is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup today, so you can find more poetry for children and adults there, too!