Review Detail

Dancing moves people the world over, both physically and spiritually. The Barefoot Book of Dance Stories invites readers to roam its pages, and thus the globe, through this universal language of dance. Eight individual folk/fairy tales carry readers from Scotland to Mali, exploring dance as literature and the cultures surrounding it. Familiar dances like the waltz and the limbo blend with the Japanese Noh and Spanish Flamenco in this collaborative anthology.

The book opens with an annotated table of contents that provides details of each dances heritage and style, and is followed by the stories themselves. The book then closes with further explanation of the dance, traditional costumes and how to perform the steps of each dance.

The occasional second-person You feels a bit unnatural and breaks some of the stories magic, perhaps because the book was not presented as a folksy narrator-driven book (Sit down, young one, and let me tell you a tale). Fortunately this usage of second-person did not carry throughout the entire book.

That said, this minor grievance will not prevent readers from the sheer enjoyment of the stories or the fluid watercolor illustrations. The book will delight independent readers who love dance, culture or the folk/fairy genre.

A CD accompanies the book.