Bailarinas del mundo

Around the World

by Aurelia Hardy

Fifteen beautiful young dancers from all around the world share with girls their dreams and feelings. This book lets young readers discover the world through dance and music. Through anecdotes, the reader will discover the dancers' love for dance enhanced with wonderful illustrations by Sybile.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

30 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2010

Reviews

[Daša]

I bought this book in Marseille in 2012 and it's been waiting on my shelf since then. I wanted some children's book with beautiful pictures and simple but rich French text to learn new words and expressions. And this book fulfilled both of these requirements.

[Valen (taylor’s version)]

tremendo

[Sarah]

Beautiful illustrations with fold out pages and love the different cultures being represented. My only negative is I wish each description was of a real life dancer's background.

[Barbara]

Although this is a lovely book with fold-out pages and gorgeous images, I suppose my pleasure in it was lessened because I expected the dancers described in it to be famous ones representing various cultures. Instead, the author provides fifteen dancers, somewhat commonplace except they have dancing skills and presumably years of training, to represent various countries such as South India, Japan, and Tahiti, among others. Each dancer describes her aspirations and the moves that she makes while dancing. Because the book takes readers across the globe, it has many possibilities for introducing them to various cultures and cultural traditions, including dance and dress. Clearly, dance goes across cultures in many ways even while it may appear in many different forms. I wish the females had not seemed so physically perfect and similar too.

[Samantha]

This book rocks! Each two page spread features a different form of dance and the dancer introduces herself and her region while she discusses the cultural importance of her dance. Some pages have flaps that lift for a dramatic unveiling such as when the reader gets the chance to open the red curtain to reveal the ballet dancer.

This is a great read for dance fans, but it doubles as a great multicultural book as well. Ditigal illustrations do a great job of opening a whole new world up to readers as each page turn really does feel like a journey.

Text is a bit lengthy so as an independent read I'd recommend this book for grades 3-5, though if used as shared reading there is appeal on down to the PreK audience.

[Mina De Caro (Mina's Bookshelf)]

Great match of rich illustrations and multicultural references. The overall effect is a sophisticated one, as dramatic as enchanting, and, for this reason, more suitable for a young audience able to take on a more complex and articulated text.