How to use this Page

Read It. Move It. Share It. 
Each month I recommend a picture book for dance educator Maria Hanley to use in her creative movement classes in New York, and then we both share our experiences with the book. Our February book was Fluff and Billy by Nicola Killen. When you're done reading about the book here on my blog, stop by Maria's Movers to see what kind of movement it can inspire!


When my girls were younger, they really liked to play follow the leader, and I sometimes used this to my advantage. At bedtime, I could usually get them to go upstairs for bed if I did some super silly moves going up our staircase and asked them to follow along.

Fluff and Billy, published a few months ago by Sterling Children's Books, is a book about friendship and overcoming disagreements. But what made me think it would be a great book for creative movement classes is that the text and illustrations also inspire a good game of follow the leader!


Fluff''s a little bigger than Billy, and he's the one who seems to be the leader. When he climbs and slides, Bill follows along. When he screams, swims, splashes, runs, and jumps, Billy follows along again. But, when Fluff decides to roll a snowball, Billy doesn't quite follow along. Billy decides to throw the snowball at Fluff, and it hits Fluff hard enough to knock him down.

Just like when young friends or siblings play together a lot of the time and then have a fight, Fluff and Billy don't talk to each other for a while -- or at least for a few spreads of the book! Eventually, though, they make up and the book ends on a happy note.

The illustrations of Fluff and Billy are darling, and I love the simplicity of the color palette that was used to create them -- shades of black and gray for their bodies and and orangish red for their beaks and feet. The backgrounds on every page of the book are a mix of white, blue, and yellow. I love books that use unique fonts, and this book does that, too.

If you want to see a few of the spreads from the book, you can see them here on Nicola Killen's website. And if you're curious to see whether Maria played a game of follow the leader with her young students this month, I hope you'll check out her post here.

My girls are six and eight now, and I haven't tried follow the leader with them in a while. They are actually getting pretty good at going upstairs on their own and at least getting the bedtime process started. It might be fun to surprise them with another game of follow the leader up the staircase one of these days, though. And I might even have to follow it up with a reading of this delightful book!

Read It. Move It. Share It. 
Every month I recommend a picture book for dance educator Maria Hanley to use with her young dance students in New York City. Then I post about the book here, and Maria posts about it on her incredibly resourceful blog Maria's Movers. This month we are exploring The Babies on the Bus by Karen Katz. It's especially great for the toddler and preschool crowd!


The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town! I think just about every toddler or preschooler has heard that song, don't you? It's just so fun to sing!

The Babies on the Bus by Karen Katz is a perfect book to go along with the song, which is just begging to be accompanied by movement. The bright and festive illustrations depict nine cute and cuddly multicultural children, a bus driver who looks like a toddler himself, and a brave teacher who is leading the children on a field trip to a local museum. There is a lot of movement in the illustrations, as you might except from a group of youngsters. You can get a feel for some of the movement in this trailer from the publisher...

Read It. Move It. Share It. 
Dance educator Maria Hanley and I explored Into the Outdoors as the August picture book in our monthly collaboration. Its unique blend of two themes -- camping and prepositions -- makes it a one-of-a-kind book for sure. And it's also a fun one to incorporate into dance classes for young children. After you read this post, you can see how Maria used it with her young dancers here.


When I was growing up, a few times every summer my family would lug our camper behind our car into the forests of Pennsylvania, where we would spend a few nights out in the wilderness with friends. Hiking, canoeing, playing in the creek, making fires, roasting marshmallows, and watching wildlife -- particularly chipmunks, deer, raccoons, and the occasional black bear! -- are all wonderful memories I have from my childhood.

Nowadays, once or twice a year my husband, our two daughters, and I head out into the Maryland woods, pitch a tent, and spend a few nights in the great outdoors as well. We haven't taken the girls hiking or canoeing yet and haven't seen quite as many animals as I did growing up, but hopefully we'll get there one day.

How about you? Do you have any special camping memories? Would you be interested in a picture book about camping? Or, although this may seem a little off topic, might you be interested in a book about prepositions? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then I just might have the book for you!

In Into the Outdoors by Susan Gal, a family of four fill their car to the brim and leave the city to go camping in the mountains. Over the course of the book, the family partakes in many of the same same activities I did as a child. They go for a hike, they play in a stream, they build a fire and roast marshmallows, and they climb into their tent at night.

Throughout the day, the family also sees tons and tons of wildlife. Although they saw many of the same animals I usually see when I go camping, they saw a few others, too. Like a fox, a porcupine, and a moose! As you may be realizing, the story line of this book is quite simple. But, what makes the story so unique is its superfluous use of prepositions!


I counted the prepositions in the book, and I came up with 19, all printed in yellow text to stand out from the otherwise white wording in the book. Almost all of the prepositions -- including across, along, around, behind, beneath, beside, over, through, up, and under -- would be great to introduce to a dance class. The youngest children might not know all of their meanings, but the illustrations can help show them. Plus, several of the prepositions are used more than once, giving the children extra opportunities to practice their meanings.

If I were teaching a dance class with this book, I think I'd set up a really neat obstacle course using as many of the prepositions as the kids could remember. Or, since there are so many prepositions, maybe I would use the book for a couple weeks and make a few different courses. Are you curious too see how Maria used the book? Let's see here!

If you're looking for other ideas for teaching prepositions, We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury is another picture book I recommend. Maria and I featured it around this time last year. Here's that post.

Read It. Move It. Share It. 
Today's post is part of my ongoing collaboration with dance educator Maria Hanley from Maria's Movers. Each month I recommend a book for Maria to use in her creative movement classes, and then we both share out experiences with the book. This month we're exploring Stomp, Dinosaur, Stomp! by Margaret Mayo and Alex Ayliffe.


Look at the Tyrannosaurus on that cover! A little scary, don't you think? But don't worry...once you open the book, he's not that scary anymore. In fact, he's pretty harmless, even in the presence of other dinosaurs. Mostly, this Tyrannosaurus just wants to stomp!


As the book continues, we meet an immense Diplodocus, a crested Pteranodon, a fierce Velociraptor, and seven other prehistoric creatures. Like the Tyrranosaurus, each of the creatures has a signature move -- the Diplodocus a swish, the Pteranodon a glide, the Velociraptor a hunt -- plus additional moves that would hopefully inspire young children to come up with some moves of their own.

Although the Tyrranosaurus is mostly absent when we meet these other creatures, he does appear on the page devoted to a tough Ankylosaurus. The signature move of the Ankylosaurus is a whack, and poor Tyrannosaurus is the recipient of one of those whacks! He doesn't look like he minds, though, and this action adds a splash of humor to the already upbeat book. We then see the Tyrannosaurus one more time -- at the end of the book -- when, still stomping, he leads the whole pack of creatures in a dinosaur parade.

Girls and boys -- especially those who love to move -- will appreciate the many movement words in the text. I bet they'll also enjoy the bright illustrations, which take up every corner of every page and, in doing so, exaggerate the exuberance that the text already portrays. Let's see if Maria agrees! You can check out her post here.