The folks at Chronicle Books (one of my favorite book publishers) have released another playful picture book to inspire young ones to dance.
Flora and the Flamingo, by Molly Idle, is a wordless picture book with two characters - a young girl and a flamingo. Both wear their "pink costumes," ready for dancing.
The story is a playful dialogue of a friendship forming. In movement terms, it is a fun way to introduce the ideas of follow the leader, mirroring, and call and response with students in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade.
Share this book within a creative dance or pre-ballet class, or purchase it for your your one who loves to dance. The beauty of wordless books is that they encourage us to ask the kids, "What is happening here? What's the story? What do you think?"
Check out the Chronicle Books website for two reasons.
1. There is a "book trailer" that shows you all of the pages of the book. It is set to the classical piece, "By the Beautiful Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II. Watching this trailer inspired me to want to use this particular piece of music when using this book.
2. Also, orders over $25 receive free shipping this week. (Chronicle publishes lots of inspiring books for dance classes, including the new book on Josephine Baker, Josephine.)
Flora and the Flamingo will lead to multiple movement possibilities. What a great way to start doing work in pairs/duets with young ones. One dancer can be the role of Flora, and one dancer can be the role of the flamingo. I also love the use of color in the book, and it inspires me to want to bring in large pieces of pink fabric with the kids as well. (Pink tulle is very inexpensive, and then you can give each student a yard of fabric.) Pick out several of the images and ask the students to make the same shapes in their bodies ("see and do").
Have fun and play!