giraffes can't dance

Giraffes Can’t Dance Book Review

by

giraffes can't danceGIRAFFES CAN’T DANCE

Written by Giles Andreae & Illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees

My daughter received this book as a Christmas present from daycare last December. The daycare organized a visit with Santa where each child got a picture with Santa and a wrapped gift. My daughter was none too happy with meeting Mr. Clause, however, she happily unwrapped her book when we got home and enjoyed bending the pages and standing on it (she was just one!)

This is one of those books that didn’t quite take when we first read it. Ava was a little too young to appreciate the pictures and words, and the book length was longer than her usual board book attention span. She did enjoy pointing out some animals, but after several pages she was done and ready to move on to something else.

We put Giraffes Can’t Dance aside and it probably ended up somewhere under the couch until we uncovered it some half a year later. We gave it another read and Ava loved it! She was intrigued with the pictures and the animals and the story. She now had the attention span to sit through the entire book and even “read it again, Mommy!”

I’m glad we didn’t end up donating or forgetting that book. I’m a fan of giving a book some time to ‘rest’. Sometimes even the best of books are not right for a child (or adult) at that particular point in time. Give it a break and the book might grow on the child. This is what happened with Giraffes Can’t Dance. Wasn’t a fan at first, then grew to love it.

Giraffes Can’t Dance is about Gerald the Giraffe who attends a dance with other African animals and is made fun of because of his inability to dance. As Gerald walks home in shame he runs into a motivational cricket who inspires Gerald to find his own style of dancing. This book is amazing for teaching children the value of being yourself and that each one of us is unique. It encourages kids to fight stereotypes and do their own thing.

This book has beautiful colors and illustrations of animals, especially of Gerald getting into very…unique…dance poses, which kids will enjoy very much. The slight rhyme to the dialogue is great for young readers to listen to and adds to the book theme of dancing.

All is all this is a great book, and was a great gift from Santa. Thank you, Santa! I would recommend this book for kids ages 1.5 and up.

giraffes can't dance children's book
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