I Won't Dance! Don't Ask Me! How Do You Dance by Thyra Heder

Everybody is out on the floor, ready to dance--disco-ing, movin' and groovin', free-stylin', bopping, hip hoppin', boogiein', break-dancin'... and balleting,

Even Rick the School Janitor takes his mop for a twirl around his suds bucket:

GO, RICK!

Everyone has his or her own style!

Koyo bops. Gilda flits. Aurora scrunches.

Except for one bespectacled boy. He takes Fred Astaire's lines, if not his moves, for his own!

"I won't dance! Don't ask me!

I'm like an ocean wave that's bumped on the shore;
I feel so absolutely stumped on the floor."

All the other kids eagerly show him how to do it!

You could shimmy like your sister Kate! You could swing like a gate! You could be singin' in the rain! You could get silly and do the Swivel, do the Scribble, do the Scoot! Dads do it! Dinos do it. Even beeping Cyberbots do it!

Just let it get weird.
See where it goes....

FACE
FINGERS
KNEES
TOES

But some people just dance to a different drummer!

"ENOUGH!" cries the kid.

"I don't dance like that!"

He goes into his room, shuts the door, and...

He boogies down and dances all over the floor...

ALONE!

Author-illustrator Thyra Heder's latest, How Do You Dance? (Abrams Books, 2019) encourages all to get up and move in their own way. Her watercolor illustrations of all kinds of people are joyful, buoyant, and full of the joy of life. Says Publishers Weekly, "Heder explores dance with pages of graceful, rhythmic watercolors that show people of myriad ages, ethnicities, shapes, and abilities stretching, bopping, spinning, and swaying... in exuberance, impulsiveness, and self-care," and in their starred review, Kirkus adds, "A gleeful, tender celebration of self-expression through movement, destined to become a favorite read-aloud."