I Am a Dancer (Millbrook Picture Books) [Library Binding]

Pat Lowery Collins (Author), Mark Graham (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up | Series: Millbrook Picture Books

Poet Pat Lowery Collins shows children that their everyday motions--catching a ball, reaching up to a shelf, or shuffling through the rain--can contain all of the elements of a dance. Mark Graham's lovely oil paintings give the reader a new appreciation of the beauty of natural movements.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 3—Similar in style to the author's I Am an Artist (Millbrook, 1992), this book shows girls and boys in various movements that can be defined as dance steps. In Collins's free-verse poem, they "shimmy out of bed," splash in puddles to the "steady drip-blip of rain," fly a kite, and play ball. Graham's beautiful oil paintings are filled with solidly built children on the move, while some of the backgrounds are almost ethereal. Even the brushstrokes convey action. This book is a lovely merging of art and poetry and gives a delightful sense of joyful motion. Paired with Rick Walton's How Can You Dance? (Putnam, 2001), it would make a great storytime selection.—Elaine Lesh Morgan, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR
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From Booklist

“I am a dancer when the tune in my head makes me reach and stretch and hop or when notes from nowhere shiver through me and shake me around.” In spare, upbeat, accessible poetry, a speaker describes how every day brings opportunities to move in tune to the world’s rhythms—from the quick beat of sports action to the “steady drip-blip of rain.” Bold acrylic paintings illustrate the poem, which is printed in just a few lines on each page. The thick paint and sometimes muted palette results in some muddied images, particularly of human figures, but the atmospheric nature scenes rendered in energetic brushwork that matches the celebratory rhythms in the words are wonderfully successful. It’s the graceful lines about finding joy everywhere and expressing that joy through art and movement that make this noteworthy, and parents and teachers alike will enjoy sharing the book’s life-affirming, inclusive message: “Whenever the beat of the world’s heart moves into your fingers and toes . . . you are a dancer too.” Preschool-Grade 2. --Gillian Engberg

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Library Binding: 30 pages
• Publisher: Millbrook Press (March 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082256369X
• ISBN-13: 978-0822563693
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,572,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

From my earliest years I thought of myself as a poet and painter. As a child in Hollywood, I also acted on the radio.

At twenty, I graduated from the University of Southern California, married,and soon moved to New England. It wasn't until the youngest of our five children entered school that I began writing picture books, and in the past ten years I've gravitated to writing young adult novels as well. My books include the Reading Rainbow selection, "I Am An Artist", and the recent sequel, "I Am a Dancer". My newest historical novel is "Hidden Voices, The Orphan Musicians of Venice", published by Candlewick Press and a finalist for the Boston Author's Club 2010 Children's Book Award. It was also nominated for a Cybil Award, and was chosen for ALA's 2010 Rainbow List. My young adult novel in free verse, "The Fattening Hut", won the Boston Author's Club 2004 Julia Ward Howe Award and was a Book Sense Pick and ALA Amelia Bloomer choice. "Daughter of Winter", set in Essex, MA in 1849, is scheduled for publication in 2010, and a picture book, "The Deer Watch", is also forthcoming from Candlewick. A chapbook of my poems, "The Quiet Woman Wakes Up Shouting", is one in a series of chapbook originals published by Folly Cove Books. I teach in Lesley University's MFA program in creative writing and live and work in Gloucester, MA. My web site is www.patlowerycollins.com