Dancers from Around the World

K-Gr 3–An all-female dance journey around the world sounds like such an inviting way to discuss global culture, but this book never goes beyond tropes. Alicia from Seville is but one of the Disney-esque array of beautiful idealized women who star in these pages. As the first star appears in the sky, “This is the time when we dance. We gypsies say that you need three people to perform flamenco: one who dances, one who sings, and one who plays an instrument...When my dance has captured the audience, I stop, ready to hear the thunderous applause and feel the fire that only flamenco provides.” Readers meet Sofia from Budapest, dancing the czardas, who mentions that “Guys snap their feet inward and outward, hitting the ground with their heels and toes, while we girls spin around like crazy, our wide skirts whirling like tops. Everyone claps to the rhythm that never slows down!” Ginger (a white girl with flowing red hair) is our girl from New York, breakdancing “here among these skyscrapers and crowded sidewalks, I feel like a real B-girl, a true breaker!” Ekua, dancing the nmane from Ghana, is the one Black dancer shown, Carmen from Buenos Aires and Miranda from Rio seem to represent all Latinx dancing; a white ballerina represents Russia, while Kimi does a Japanese fan dance and Kiani, in Hawaii, does the hula.