Picture Books About Dance

Author	Giles Andreae
ISBN	0439287197

" We all can dance when we find music that we love." This is practically a life motto of mine. I feel dancing can fix the world. We should force our government to dance all the time and they would be better policy makers. Anyway.

I love Giraffes and I love dancing. So this was a match made in heaven....

Author	Sandra Boynton
ISBN	1563054426

Everybody sing along—because it's time to do-si-do in the barnyard with a high-spirited animal crew! From Boynton on Board, the bestselling series of board books, here is BARNYARD DANCE, with Sandra Boynton's twirling pigs, fiddle-playing cows, and other unforgettable animals. Extra-big,...

Author	Molly Idle
ISBN	1452110069

In this innovative wordless picture book with interactive flaps, Flora and her graceful flamingo friend explore the trials and joys of friendship through an elaborate synchronized dance. With a twist, a turn, and even a flop, these unlikely friends learn at last how to dance together in perfect harmony....

Author	Lisa Wheeler
ISBN	0152025227

With a simple clap of hands, an itty-bitty beboppin' baby gets his whole family singing and dancing. Sister's hands snap. Granny sings scat. Uncle soft-shoes--and Baby keeps the groove. Things start to wind down when Mama and Daddy sing blues so sweet. Now a perfectly drowsy baby sleeps deep, deep,...

Author

Molly Idle

Having mastered ballet in Flora and the Flamingo, Flora takes to the ice and forms an unexpected friendship with a penguin. Twirling, leaping, spinning, and gliding, on skates and flippers, the duo mirror each other's graceful dance above and below the ice. But when Flora gives the penguin the cold...

Author	Connie Schofield-Morrison
ISBN	1619631784

On a simple trip to the park, the joy of music overtakes a mother and daughter. The little girl hears a rhythm coming from the world around her- from butterflies, to street performers, to ice cream sellers everything is musical! She sniffs, snaps, and shakes her way into the heart of the beat, finally busting...

Author	Lindsey Craig
ISBN	0375864555

Author Lindsey Craig teams up with Arthur creator and bestselling artist Marc Brown in a toe-tapping farmyard dance-a-thon—perfect for toddler and preschooler read-alouds. As soon as the sun goes down, the animals are up! ("Sheep can't sleep. Sheep can't sleep. Sheep can't sleep 'cause they got...

Author	Karen Beaumont
ISBN	0803725876

It's nap time on the farm, but one un-sleepy baby has a different plan... Will Baby do the cha-cha? Will Mama flip her wig? Will Baby dance the polka with a polka-dotted pig? Perfect fun for young children who like lively stories, this happy tale invites all to join in and dance along.  Read, sing,...

Author	Laurel Snyder
ISBN	1452118906

The world is big.
Anna is small.
The snow is
everywhere
and all around.
But one night . . .
One night, her mother takes her to the ballet, and everything is changed. Anna finds a beauty inside herself that she cannot contain.

So begins the journey of a girl who will one...

Author	Lindsey Craig
ISBN	0375861815

Clickity! Clickity! Long green feet!
Who is dancing that clickity beat?

Lizard is dancing on clickity feet.
Clickity! Clickity! Happy feet!

Introducing a get-up-and-dance toddler book-so catchy and rhythmic, you'll almost want to sing it.

Lindsey Craig's...

Author	Leo Dillon
ISBN	0590478834

"There once was a man who danced in the street / He brought pleasure and joy to the people he'd greet / He didn't just dance, he made art with his feet / Rap a tap tap--think of that!"
This simple book for young children has the added bonus of describing the life of a ground-breaking African-American tap...

Author	Bill Martin Jr.
ISBN	0805007997

In an old farmhouse, bathed in the light of a full moon, a young boy creeps to his bedroom window and looks outside. Was that a voice he just heard, or the hooting of an owl? There it is again:

Come a little closer...
Come a little closer...
Listen to the night...
There's music in the...

Author	James Marshall
ISBN	0062051717

While I was and remain in absolute love with Maurice Sendak's brilliant illustrations (they are lively, fun, imaginative, and the delicious puns and word plays using porcine terms/descriptions from a number of different languages leave me smiling gleefully and with much appreciation), James Marshall's...

Author	Debbie Allen
ISBN	0142300160

Debbie Allen's contemporary retelling of the classic tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses with illustrations from Kadir Nelson!

 Reverend Knight can't understand why his twelve sons' sneakers are torn to threads each and every morning, and the boys aren't talking. They know their all-night...

Author	Lauren Stringer
ISBN	0547907257

The Russian artists Igor Stravinsky and Vaslav Nijinsky were popular in their time: Stravinsky for music, Nijinsky for dance. When their radically new ballet, The Rite of Spring, was first performed in Paris on May 29, 1913, the reaction was so polarized, there were fistfights and riots! Brilliant...

Author	Katharine Holabird
ISBN	0670060267

Originally published in 1983, and then presented in this 25th Anniversary Edition in 2008, this first story about that dancing mouse, Angelina Ballerina, is immensely charming. Always dancing, always moving, Angelina is the despair of her mother, as she causes destruction wherever she goes with...

Author	Maurie J. Manning
ISBN	0618991107

A little girl wakes in the night to mysterious, inviting noises. She rouses her brother, and they sneak downstairs and peek into the kitchen. To their amazement and delight, their parents are dancing and singing---"?Como te quiero! Oh, how I love you!" ---as they clean up and put food away. Mama and Papa...

Author	Betsy Bird
ISBN	0061960837

Lexy loves to dance. She lives to dance. She's quitting dance.

It's those darn recitals. The butterflies seem to fly right down her throat and live in her stomach. She gets so nervous she cannot even move. Frozen. Just like an ice pop.

Lexy decides to teach dance instead of train for it....

Author	Tony Mitton
ISBN	0439395143

Shake, shake, shudder, near the sludgy old swamp. The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp. Join in with Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and friends as the dinosaurs stir up a Dinosaurumpus!

Where can you find a Deinosuchus that practically pirouettes on its tail and a T-Rex that bounds gracefully...

Author

Cynthia Leitich Smith

Tink, tink, tink, tink, sang cone-shaped jingles sewn to Grandma Wolfe's dress.

Jenna's heart beats to the brum, brum, brum, brum of the powwow drum as she daydreams about the clinking song of her grandma's jingle dancing.

Jenna loves the tradition of jingle dancing that has been...

Author	Libba Moore Gray
ISBN	0531071421

I love this book. I even mentioned it on my blog a few years ago when someone else's post went viral about why we shouldn't try to give our kids a magical childhood (I've run a non-profit site and later the related blog called "A Magical Childhood" for nearly 20 years).

In that post, I wrote:

"There...

Author	Molly Bang
ISBN	0688073336

A beautifully illustrated retelling of an ancient Japanese folktale by Molly Bang, the celebrated creator of numerous picture books including the Caldecott Honor Books Ten, Nine, Eight; The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher; and When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry . . .

Business...

Author	Jan Greenberg
ISBN	1596433388

A picture book about the making of Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring, her most famous dance performance

Martha Graham : trailblazing choreographer

Aaron Copland : distinguished American composer

Isamu Noguchi : artist, sculptor, craftsman

Award-winning...

Author	Siena Cherson Siegel
ISBN	0689867476

The Sibert Honor–winning graphic memoir about the dreams and realities of becoming a ballerina.

Ballerinas are young when they first dream of dance. Siena was six—and her dreams kept skipping and leaping, circling and spinning, from airy runs along a beach near her home in Puerto Rico,...

Author	Bob Shea
ISBN	1484713788

Ballet Cat and Sparkles the Pony are trying to decide what to play today. Nothing that Sparkles suggests--making crafts, playing checkers, and selling lemonade--goes well with the leaping, spinning, and twirling that Ballet Cat likes to do. When Sparkles's leaps, spins, and twirls seem halfhearted,...

Author	Tammi Sauer
ISBN	1402778376

C'mon over--there's a whole lot of clucking going on in this hilarious follow-up to the popular Chicken Dance.


Marge and Lola have hit the big time! The dancing duo is ready to rock 'n' roll their way across the country, touring with the great Elvis Poultry. But when the lights go down and...

Author	Misty Copeland
ISBN	0399166157

In her debut picture book, Misty Copeland tells the story of a young girl--an every girl--whose confidence is fragile and who is questioning her own ability to reach the heights that Misty has reached. Misty encourages this young girl's faith in herself and shows her exactly how, through hard work and...

Author	Debbie Allen
ISBN	0803725019

Sassy worries that her too-large feet, too-long legs, and even her big mouth will keep her from her dream of becoming a star ballerina. So for now she's just dancing in the wings, watching from behind the curtain, and hoping that one day it will be her turn to shimmer in the spotlight. When the director of...

Author	James Howe
ISBN	0763644374

From the sure-footed duo of James Howe and Randy Cecil comes a hugely endearing new character in a humorous, heart-warming tale about holding on to your dreams.
Brontorina has a dream. She wants to dance. But Brontorina is rather large too large to fit in Madame Lucille s dance studio. Brontorina...

Author	Ruth Sanderson
ISBN	0316770620

This is a tale that always intrigued me, so I look for the unique detail in each version I read. I really appreciate that, in this one, there's a subplot about the princes who had been trying to solve the mystery. And I appreciate that this is probably the most gorgeously illustrated version. But Michael...

Author	Sandra Boynton
ISBN	0761133232

Sing a song of Boynton! Before there was the Grammy-nominated Philadelphia Chickens, the #1 New York Times children’s bestseller, there was Rhinoceros Tap, the collection of seriously silly songs. This truly delightful set—a Recording Industry Association of America Gold album with 647,000...

Author	Jane Kohuth
ISBN	0803737122

A rollicking, rhyming read-aloud that will knock your socks off!

Warm-up, wiggle, stretch your beak.
Duck Sock Hop comes once a week!
The mood is high, the sun is low,
the music starts, get ready, go!

In this tongue-twisting, toe-tapping picture book, ducks grab socks...

Author	Jonah Winter
ISBN	1416961232

A picture book biography that will inspire readers to dance to their own beats!

Singer, dancer, actress, and independent dame, Josephine Baker felt life was a performance. She lived by her own rules and helped to shake up the status quo with wild costumes and a you-can’t-tell-me-no attitude...