Giraffes Can’t Dance
Published by Orchard Books (Scholastic, Inc.)
Written by Giles Andreae
Illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees
Gerald the giraffe, like me, the teacher, is not confident with his dance moves. Gerald's "knees were awfully crooked and his legs were rather thin,” he was clumsy, and, sometimes, awkward. Those of you who have seen the VoiceThread I published at the beginning of the school year know that Gerald and I could swap a few stories about running into a tree or not posing properly for a group picture. Those of you who haven’t have probably felt awkward or uncomfortable at some point in your lives, so you can relate. Plus, it is hard not to be excited about a book with a brilliant yellow giraffe doing a back flip on the cover. Parker-Ree’s illustrations transport readers into a beautiful, warm and bright African landscape which is sometimes remind me of what a dream sequence might look like in Disney’s The Lion King—a stereotypical African jungle only with blurred edges and unusual hues.
The story picks up at the annual Jungle Dance—the event of the season, according to sociable wild animals in Africa. Gerald watches in awe from the sidelines as “warthogs waltzed” and “lions tangoed,” but when it’s finally his turn to perform, he freezes up in the center of the circle. Whether or not we have personally experienced being exposed in the center of a circle of peers, most people in contemporary America have seen a movie or a TV show where a central character has that unfortunate experience. Like many of those fictional characters, Gerald runs away from his taunting peers only to find himself face-to-face with a true friend who helps him find his inner dancing fool. I almost cried (seriously), when I read the following passage, sung by Gerald’s friend the cricket: Listen to the swaying grass
and listen to the trees.
To me the sweetest music
is those branches in the breeze.
So imagine that the lovely moon
is playing just for you—
everything makes music
if you really want it to.
If that doesn’t get you to read this book, I don’t know what else can… except, maybe, the John Travolta-esque pose that Gerald strikes towards the end…
This sounds like a fun book that is also really well written, if the rest of the text is like the song you shared. I have a theory that the best children's books combine silliness + animals + a message. This book maintains my theory.
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds delightful. Wonderful message about overcoming awkwardness and helping friends. I enjoyed the language you excerpted. This must be a fun book to read aloud and share with a class IF you can keep from choking up a bit as the cricket imparts his advise. Very touching. Thanks for introducing me to this book!
ReplyDeleteJen, can you please dance for me? I'm sure you are amazing and can even strike a pose like Gerald. I think that this is a great book to introduce to students who are not as confident about things. It would be great to encourage our students to embrace the awkward, silly, and different and make it their own. Plus, dancing is all about expression, not just making it look pretty.
ReplyDeleteI just needed to share with the group (because I forgot to in class and it only seems appropriate to post this to a blog), but I did an impromptu read aloud in my classroom last Wednesday and I used this book! There was some confusing timing with AR testing, a few kids were left behind, and my CT was feeling a little under the weather so it was my time. Since I only had six kids to instruct, I had them all divide a piece of paper into four rectangles and draw the images they saw in their heads at four different parts in this story (by the way, I only showed them the cover art before). Since the rest of the class was slowly trickling in, I read the book out loud again (showing the actual pictures this time) to the whole class and my six budding illustrators shared their awesome picture stories with the class! This book has such great imagery it is perfect for this type of lesson!
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