Dancers of the World (Around the World)

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.

Gr 3-6- Fifteen young women worldwide enthusiastically describe the dance form they love and practice. Each one talks about the music, the steps, and the dance's history, and imagines herself in a particular role. In some cases, she describes a real performance. The styles vary greatly-ballet, ballroom, folk, Kabuki, Senegalese, Flamenco, Tahitian, etc. The text is written in a casual, diarylike format that is appealing. The colorful double-page illustrations with some foldouts feature elongated figures with the same idealized dancer's body in attractive costumes and appropriate settings. The text is often on colored pages that sometimes seem a bit opaque for the print to be able to stand out. A useful addition for collections that need more information about the various forms of dance.
--School Library Journal

“Dancers of the World" is a magical vignette of 14 graceful dancers from locations, traditions, and cultures around the world. Beautifully illustrated with fold-out painted scenes, dancers like Heloise, from the Parisian ballet, or Maeva, a Tahitian dancer, or Cynthia, an American rock and roll dancer adorn these incredible pages. Each dancer has a brief biography that includes specifics about the origin of the type of dance she specializes in. From Aram, a Bollywood dancer in Omandur, South India, to Akiko, a kabuki dancer in Japan, here are beautiful examples of many styles of exotic, graceful dance traditions. "Dancers of the World" is a treasure chest book especially appealing to young girls who hope to follow their own dance dreams.
--Midwest Book Review