Elephants Cannot Dance! By: Mo Williams

Elephants Cannot Dance! (Ages 4-8)

Willems, Mo. (2009). Elephants Cannot Dance!  New York: Hyperion Books for Children

Genre: Fiction, Easy Reader

Lexile:

This book is about an elephant, Gerald and his friend Piggie. Piggie wants to teach Gerald how to dance, but Gerald says that elephants do not dance. Throughout the book Piggie tries to teach Gerald how to dance, but he just can’t quite grasp the idea of dancing, and in the end says that its true, elephants cannot dance. Piggie feels bad and knows that Gerald is sad. Then a few squirrels come and they say they want to learn how to dance, but maybe not from Piggie!

This book has a lot of language development for students, the age range that this book is targeted for allows the students to grow language wise because they begin to learn about verbs, past, present, and future. Throughout this book the words are mixed between tenses and allows students to begin to make meaning of the tenses. It also allows for social growth in students, because the elephant could not dance like Piggie was showing him, but he could dance like himself. In the end the squirrels wanted to learn from him. This shows students it is ok to be yourself and that just because it’s not the way you are taught, there are other ways to do things.

Characterization- The characters are portrayed by the illustrator and express many expressions made easily visible by the illustrations and in some ways tell the story without the words.

Style- This book uses a comic book style writing. The Piggie has his story bubble and the Elephant does as well. This would be a great read aloud or pair share book because the students can split the parts and be interactive with the book.

Illustrations- The illustrations are simple but convey a lot of meaning throughout the book. Mo Williams writes and illustrates all of his books. The illustrations help us see and make meaning of feeling and facial expressions throughout the book.

Mini Lesson- This would be a good pair share book to ask students to read aloud with each other and practice not only reading but expression as well and seeing if they can match the facial expressions in the book to themselves adding expression to their reading.

Enjoyment- This book is a great read for struggling readers as well as the ages 4-8. It is a great way to begin to introduce how to read with expression!