Thursday, November 5, 2009

How Do You Wokka-Wokka?


How Do You Wokka-Wokka? is by Elizabeth Bluemle and illustrated by Randy Cecil. This new picture book is geared towards children ages 3-5, but I think that older students would like this story too. This is a fun story that is about a certain movement called a 'wokka-wokka'. I really like this story book because it shows that there are multiple ways to do different things; in this case it is involving the wokka-wokka and showing how people do it differently. The cover of this story is very appealing because the title is written in what could be paint or chalk on a sidewalk with children playing outside. The inside cover helps you wonder what it is all about. It says,
"Some days you wake up and you just gotta wokka. Wokka what? Wokka-wokka! It's about dance. It's about movement. It's about shimmy-shakin' be-boppin' and more!
Its about gathering the neighbors and joining the party. Come on!"

The text in this story is all over the page, wrapped around the illustrations of children moving around, doing the wokka-wokka. This book would be great to read to early readers as well as any child really, when discussing different movements or just a fun read-aloud! I think this book could be read in the classroom or even at home to the children. I really enjoyed reading this book, and I know kids will love it too!


...By taking another look through the story, after my friend pointed it out, it seems as though all of the characters in this story are of the same skin color. I feel like maybe it is a suburb of New York or something because of the stairs in front of each building and them close together, no yards, and other things displayed throughout the story. I am unsure of what it means; I do not think that the skin color displayed in this story negative, I think it is positive, energetic and fun. This book shows kids laughing and playing like all kids do, no matter the skin color. This is just an observation I have noticed but I do not think it really means anything. I do not know what other readers think of this though.

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