Fidgety Feet! Dancing Feet by Lindsey Craig and Marc Brown

CREEPITY! CREEPITY!
LOTS OF PURPLE FEET.

WHO'S DANCING THAT CREEPITY BEAT?
CATERPILLAR DANCING ON CREEPITY FEET.


CREEPITY! CREEPITY!
HAPPY FEET!

Dancing, prancing, stomping, clomping--all come naturally to animals--and to kids. When kids need something fun but controlled to give their fidgety feet something to do, Lindsey Craig's brand-new Dancing Feet! (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010) is a boisterous, bouncing book just right for those times. Ladybug, elephant, duck, caterpillar, and lizard feet are all presented first, going tippety, stompity, slappity, creepity, and clickety, giving the kids a chance to guess whose feet are dancing to that beat, concluding with kid feet stepping out to their very own beat:

STAMPITY! STAMPITY!
WHO'S THAT DANCING TO THAT BEAT?

WE ARE DANCING TO THAT BEAT.
STAMPITY! STAMPITY!
HAPPY FEET!

Marc Brown, who gave us all those awesome Arthur picture books, videos, and the award-winning PBS cartoon series, dedicates his fresh colored paper collages here to the notable creators of the style, Leo Lionni and Eric Carle, and Brown's simple but subtle use of this medium gives Craig's text great verve and movement. In softly muted shades of oranges, golds, reds, greens, and purples, using familiar geometrical shapes, his animals have both texture and substance and a sense of joyous bounce perfect for preschoolers who need to move and groove.

Pair this one with Doreen Cronin's Bounce and Wiggle (Bccb Blue Ribbon Picture Book Awards (Awards)) (see my reviews here) for an audience-participation storytime session that will energize all!

More Movin' an' Groovin': Stretch by Doreen Cronin

Stretch with me.
Hands in the air!
Count to three.
Hold it right there!

With the publication of her brand-new-this-week Stretch (Atheneum, 2009) Caldecott author Doreen Cronin has completed her popular trilogy of preschool movement books, beginning with Wiggle (Bccb Blue Ribbon Picture Book Awards (Awards)) and continued with Bounce, (see my earlier review here) all led enthusiastically by an long-eared exercise hound decked out in bright digitally-colored illustrations by Scott Menchin which almost stretch right off the page.

Cronin and Menchin provide plenty of bouncy rhymes and witty illustrations to keep kids laughing through their latest collaboration:

Can you stretch to the ceiling?
Can you stretch to the floor?
Can you stretch with a whisper?
Can you stretch with a ROAR?

I stretch my lungs to take a breath,
Then blow out nice and slow.
A bubble will stretch and stretch...
Until there's no room left to grow. POP!
(Pink bubble gum splatters decorate our exercise guru's face!)

If you stretch me and I stretch you,
Who knows how far we can go!

These three short and sassy little books provide parents and preschool teachers with a built-in opportunity for movement--a welcome way to give kids a bouncing, wiggling, stretching break and a jolly rhyming storytime to boot!

Joy of Movement: Wiggle and Bounce by Doreen Cronin

These days anything we can do to get kids up and moving is a good thing! Fresh from their 2005 award-winning hit, Wiggle, author Doreen Cronin and illustrator Scott Menchin are back with another light-hearted celebration of the pure joy of motion, titled Bounce, which will get the littlest couch potato hopping.

Scott Menchim's lively and colorful illustrations, which feature tidbits of digital collage throughout, keep the eye bouncing left to right as the cartoonish canine character rhymes his way from a bunny-guided hip-hop through a cabbage field to a final bump and bounce off his bed. Doreen Cronin's rhyme-time story bounds right along with the pictures and is sure to keep preschoolers giggling as they're wiggling to the very end.

It's hard to bounce in roller skates,
It's fun to bounce on poles.
If hippos bounced from place to place,
Imagine all the holes!

A bounce can turn into a bump,
A bump into a fall.
But it's better to have bounced and bumped,
Than never to have bounced at all!

Pair Wiggle and Bounce and what do you get? A double dribble, giggle-wiggle fun fest and a way-fun workout besides! Stock up on some balls and some hula hoops and start moving and grooving!