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…
