11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dance dance wherever you may be, June 11, 2005
This review is from: Jazzy Miz Mozetta (Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent. Illustrator (Awards)) (Hardcover)
Whenever I see yet another children's picture book celebrating the heyday of jazz, bebop, and swing I always wonder how interesting that book is to the intended child audience. I mean, sure "Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa", by Andrea Davis Pinkney is fun, but do child readers dig it? Or do they just see it as yet another history lesson disguised as a book? With this in mind, "Jazzy Miz Mozetta" is extraordinary because even though it covers some old-fashioned odes to the dances of yesteryear, kids will enjoy reading and watching this extraordinary heroine as she bops, jitterbugs, and re bop she bams her way through the night.
One evening, sweet Miz Mozetta decides to doll herself up for a stroll in the moonlight. She applies Pretty Plum powder, Tango Mango lipstick, and a dress of a distinctive red sheen. Once outside, she runs into three of her friends while across the street some kids dance and jive to their beatbox. In a rare humor, Miz Mozetta asks the kids if she can join in, but their skepticism puts her off. Her friends won't join her either, so it's up to her apartment she clumps where she decides to turn up the radio and dream of dancing days. Fortunately for us, the tale doesn't end there. Her friends, lured by Miz Mozetta's spunk and the music from the band, put on their finest swing clothes and zoot suits and start some serious jitterbugging. Now it's the kids asking if THEY can join in on the fun and by the end everyone's cutting a rug in Miz Mozetta's snazzy living room floor.
There are tons of children's picture books out there that have elderly adults as their heroes, but few in which those adults dance as wildly and extravagantly as this. Author Brenda C. Roberts has a good ear for the cadences and wordings required for such a jazzy snazzy book as this. There's wonderful repetition and the characters speak affections like, "chickadee" and "honey dear". When Miz Mozetta's friends come in to dance the night away, one man's hair, "was shiny and slick and blacker than black and smelled like shoe polish". Couple this with first time children's illustrator Frank Morrison and you've got yourself a pretty little picture book. Morrison may never have helped create a book for kids before, but he's the perfect person to pair with Brenda Roberts' words. His Miz Mozetta all akimbo arms and straight strong legs. Characters in this book twist their bodies into an assortment of strange shapes and angles. Best of all are the wild dancing sequences where the multicolored elders regard the baggy clothed youngsters then burst into magnificent twirls and romps.
The book's certainly the kind of thing to wake the kids up with, that's for sure. If you want a high stepping picture book to accompany your dance-centric storytime (of which books like "Dumpy LaRue" and the aforementioned "Ella Fitzgerald" would have to be a part of), this book has your number. A visual stunner with a great sense of wordplay to boot.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jazzy fun for all, September 19, 2006
This review is from: Jazzy Miz Mozetta (Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent. Illustrator (Awards)) (Hardcover)
This book sparked my interest as one my husband and son would enjoy together. It has far exceeded my expectations. We all enjoy it immensely. The book definately has a jazzy tone, and it's a great story. My son loves to say that he "spun so fast he dissapeared!"
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