Fight to Build a Better Bridge: Change Sings by Amanda Gorman

A little girl with an enormous guitar begins it all, playing and singing, as she walks along the sidewalk (with a wall mural of Martin Luther King as her backdrop), and as she marches along, other young musicians join the the band--a small boy in a yarmulka joins her in cleaning up broken bottles and cans before he picks up his huge Sousaphone and plays with her. The two bring food to a homeless mother and child and a lonely woman with her walker, and recruit a trumpet player along the way.

Seeing a small girl isolated high on her porch, the young musicians help build her a ramp so she can join them with her drum.

I DON'T MAKE A TALLER FENCE.

BUT FIGHT TO BUILD A BETTER BRIDGE.

A young trombonist is recruited as the little band helps storekeepers along the way as they pass, and a very small girl adds her tiny tambourine.

WE KNOW IT WON'T BE LONG.

WON'T YOU SING ALONG?

In Amanda Gorman's latest plea for social change, Change Sings: A Children's Anthem (Viking Books, 2021), the author says she "takes a knee to make a stand."

In beautiful illustrations by the award-winning artist Loren Long, the creator of the inspiring young steer in the much-loved stories about farm adventures, Otis, and sequels, and Barack Obama's Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters,

The New York Time's top-selling illustrator adds gloriously glowing illustrations to join author Amanda Gordon, America's National Youth Poet Laureate.

Says Kirkus in a starred review, "Text and poetry work together to regulate a careful reading of this beautiful work. One to keep, to read, and to reread.”

Gotta Dance!! I Got the Rhythm! by Connie Schofield-Morrison

I HEARD THE RHYTHM IN MY MIND... BEAT! BEAT!

A stroll into the park gets this girl's pink-sneakered feet tapping out the beat all around. She shakes her shoes with the rhythm of the breeze in the trees, feeling the beat in everything.

Some boys drum on trash can lids, and she snaps her fingers and claps her hands.

I HIPPED AND HOPPED!

BING BANG BOOM!

A boy cranks up his boom box to add a tune to the music mix. The song is infectious, and other kids follow the leader, and soon there is a whole parade of kids moving to the beat behind her. Even a street clown falls in line, and moms, dads, and passersby join in a rhythm section that has everyone dancing.

It's a spontaneous, rhythmic happening in the King Award-winning Connie Scholfield-Morrison's brand-new I Got the Rhythm (Bloomsbury Press, 2014). Artist Frank Morrison's vivacious little heroine is hard to resist as she dances through the park, absorbed in the joy of moving to the beat, and his urban park hustles and bustles with the colorful food vendors, wannabe buskers, and people ready to have some fun. A natural for preschool students learning about the elements of music and an easy for choice for early readers to enjoy on their own.

Partner this one with Lindsay Craig's and Marc Brown's Farmyard Beat and Dancing Feet! for more two more toe-tapping tales. (See my reviews here.)