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Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | EASY SCH | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
In this preschool picture book, young children show us the wonder and fun of learning. After reading a book about dragons with their teacher, these inventive preschoolers decide to make their own dragon out of colored paper, yarn, feathers, and . . . themselves! Soon they're out the door, onto the playground, and into another world--the world of imagination. Becoming a magnificent dragon, the children dance over snowy mountains, through tall forests, and into whispery meadows, before returning to school for a wonderful birthday treat.
A perfect accompaniment to Chinese New Year celebrations, Dragon Dancing is both a treat for the eyes and the mind.
Author Notes
Carole Lexa Schaefer and Pierr Morgan have collaborated on many books together, including Cool Time Song and Someone Says, a School LibraryJournal Best Book of the Year. They both live in Washington State.
Carole Lexa Schaefer and Pierr Morgan have collaborated on manybooks together, including Cool Time Song and Someone Says, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. They both live in Washington State.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-A classroom story comes alive in the art room as children decorate dragons for Mei Lin's birthday. An excellent choice for storytime, the text features just a few lines per page and many fun sounds-from the Birthday Dragon's "boink-boink eyes" and "ricky-rack back" to the "stomp, bomp-tromping" of a dragon dancing parade that goes "creep-crouching through tall forests" on one page and "swirl-whirling around whispery meadows" on another. The color of the gouache-and-marker illustrations increases in brightness as the students transition gradually from the classroom into their imaginative fantasy. Line and space convey the celebratory movement of the parade as well as the more hushed wonder of the dreamlike journey. Repeating shapes and elements create rhythm and bring unity throughout the illustrations. Pleasing to the eye and the ear, this book is a satisfying introduction to the dragon of Chinese culture and may also inspire the creation of a few original "sparkly paper and ribbons" dragon crafts.-Julie R. Ranelli, Kent Island Branch Library, Stevensville, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
On Mei Lin's birthday, she and her classmates transform their art project into a faraway dragon-dance adventure. The rhythmic text's ""whish-whoosh"" sounds and ""swirl-whirling"" motion of the journey will captivate young listeners. The lively mixed-media illustrations cleverly merge fantasy and reality, invoking a jubilant celebration of art, imagination, and culture. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
In school, the teacher reads a book about dragons, and the students are enthralled. Later, in art, while making decorations for Mei Lin's birthday, Mei Lin announces that she is Birthday Dragon and places a crown of paper candles on her head. Her classmates excitedly join in, providing properly shaped ("boink-boink") eyes, a nose, a "ricky-rack" back, a tail, feathers, spangles and scales. Together, the children begin to dance, and lo and behold, the "sparkle-head" dragon is born. He frolics around the room and slips right out the door on a flight of fancy that leads the class through China--over mountaintops, across seas, through forests, along marshes, around meadows and under cherry-blossom trees. Until, that is, their teacher calls them back for a savory birthday snack. "Grr-umble-yumble-YUMMM!" The simple, imaginative text is replete with onomatopoeia, and colorful, flowing illustrations perfectly depict the adventurous multi-ethnic class on their exciting journey. A fun-filled tribute to the powers of cooperation and the imagination. (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Readers familiar with The Squiggle (1996) and Someone Says (2003) will recognize this book's ethnically diverse classroom and its spare but jubilant depictions of imaginative play. After their teacher reads a book about dragons, a group of children, led by the same pigtailed girl who spearheaded the previous books' pretending games, fashions art supplies into a sparkle-head dragon with a ribbon tail. The children then go dragon dancing through a playground transformed into Asian-influenced landscapes, their movements expressed in read-aloud-friendly phrases such as mish-mooshing and la-dee-daw-dawdling. The children's immersion in their fantasy is gracefully captured by Morgan's economical artwork, in which the whimsical dragon craft project takes on a life of its own, then dissolves into loose scribbles as the children dreamily return to themselves. The substance of the first two books is not much altered here, but the bustling energy of preschoolers comes through with just as much affection, and the parading-dragon premise will be of particular use around celebrations of the Chinese New Year. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2007 Booklist
