Here are 100 books that Flora and the Flamingo fans have personally recommended if you like
Flora and the Flamingo.
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I’m an artist with an analytical mind. I love art and stories but I also love systems and processes. Ever since taking a class at art school about making pop-ups, I’ve been in love with paper engineering. It’s been the perfect synthesis of all my loves. There’s something fascinating about transforming an everyday object (paper) into something unexpected. Combined that with a great story and you have a magical experience! I like focusing my work on books for young readers (board books - picture books) because it gives adults and kids an opportunity to interact with each other and build memories.
Sitting on the bookshelf horizontally (swing on top)—I was intrigued the moment I laid eyes on it and it did not disappoint.
Just about every book I own is structured the same with the spine is always on the side of the book. But this book has the spine on top! I opened the book and flipped the pages up as Mel falls down the tree. Then, through the clever illustrations and design of the text, I wound up turning the book upside and found myself flipping the pages down to make Mel fly back up the tree. What sorcery was this?
I’ve seen many illustrators try to have readers turn a book, but I have never had such a smooth and seamless experience!
3
authors picked
Mel Fell
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
4,
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
A Caldecott Honor Book and ALA Notable Book of the Year! An innovative and charming tale about a plucky little bird, from the award-winning author-illustrator of Fox the Tiger.
Readers will delight in turning their book sideways and upside down to follow Mel on her journey from downward fall to triumphant flight in this tale of self-confidence and taking a leap of faith.
An especially enjoyable and satisfying read-aloud!
I’m an artist with an analytical mind. I love art and stories but I also love systems and processes. Ever since taking a class at art school about making pop-ups, I’ve been in love with paper engineering. It’s been the perfect synthesis of all my loves. There’s something fascinating about transforming an everyday object (paper) into something unexpected. Combined that with a great story and you have a magical experience! I like focusing my work on books for young readers (board books - picture books) because it gives adults and kids an opportunity to interact with each other and build memories.
Without using any physically interactive mechanisms, this book still engages!
It breaks the fourth wall and the narrator asks you directly to do certain tasks—tap the dot, tilt the book to the left, shake the book, etc. When reading this book with my kids, I’ve never heard so many giggles. It is also a great way to help teach my kids colors, actions, and directions. Reading this book becomes a form of play!
PRESS HERE, MIX IT UP!, LET'S PLAY!, and SAY ZOOP! Collect all four interactive books from Herve Tullet!
Press the yellow dot on the cover of this interactive children's book, follow the instructions within, and embark upon a magical journey! Each page of this surprising touch book instructs the reader to push the button, shake it up, tilt the book, and who knows what will happen next! Children and adults alike will giggle with delight as the dots multiply, change direction, and grow in size! Especially remarkable because the adventure occurs on the flat surface of the simple, printed page,…
I’m an artist with an analytical mind. I love art and stories but I also love systems and processes. Ever since taking a class at art school about making pop-ups, I’ve been in love with paper engineering. It’s been the perfect synthesis of all my loves. There’s something fascinating about transforming an everyday object (paper) into something unexpected. Combined that with a great story and you have a magical experience! I like focusing my work on books for young readers (board books - picture books) because it gives adults and kids an opportunity to interact with each other and build memories.
Lots of books use die cuts but this book cleverly uses die cuts to have Nibbles, the book monster, look like he’s eating his way through the book!
Not only that, I love how there are books within this book. Like, literally—there are three additional books with their own pages on top of the actual book pages. This book is absolutely inventive and full of fun!
1
author picked
Nibbles
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
2,
3,
4, and
5.
What is this book about?
Nibbles the Book Monster is on the loose, and he's chomping through all of your favorite fairy tales! Will anything or anyone be able to stop him?
With books within the book, Emma Yarlett's utterly appealing artwork, and lots and lots of nibbled holes, this laugh-out-loud funny and ferocious charmer's unstoppable appetite for the printed page will nibble a hole right through your heart.
I’m an artist with an analytical mind. I love art and stories but I also love systems and processes. Ever since taking a class at art school about making pop-ups, I’ve been in love with paper engineering. It’s been the perfect synthesis of all my loves. There’s something fascinating about transforming an everyday object (paper) into something unexpected. Combined that with a great story and you have a magical experience! I like focusing my work on books for young readers (board books - picture books) because it gives adults and kids an opportunity to interact with each other and build memories.
I first learned about Aaron Becker’s work at an SCBWI conference during his breakout session where he was discussing the development of his book, Journey.
I was surprised to see a board board by him but was intrigued by the die cuts and rainbow color wheel. Upon opening the book, seemed to be departure from his other work, but it was just as beautiful and brilliant. It was inspiring to see his range.
I found this book to be perfect for my kid as babies and young toddlers. It’s short, simple, and really captures their attention when light is coming through the transparent colored circles. And it’s cool to see and talk about how mixing primary colors create all the other colors.
With a wondrously simple die-cut book, the Caldecott Honor–winning creator of the Journey trilogy brings his talents further into the light.
This is the light that brings the day.
Open this beautiful book to find a graphic yellow sun surrounded by a halo of bright die-cut circles. Now hold the page up to the light and enjoy the transformation as the colors in those circles glow. In an elegant, sparely narrated ode to the phenomenon of light, Aaron Becker follows as light reflects off the earth to warm our faces, draws up the sea to make the rain, feeds all…
I began studying women’s lives in college (1960s), but recently realized that I (like others) passed myself off as a gender specialist, but had been ignoring men’s roles, beliefs, and behaviour in gender dynamics. I was put off by the studies that too consistently showed men as always violent and controlling. Many studies emphasized men at war, men abusing women, and gay men with HIV/AIDS; there seemed no recognition of positive masculine traits. Recognizing also that men had different ideals about their own masculinity in different places, I examined men’s lives among international elites and in communities in the US, Sumatra, and Indonesia, where I’d done ethnographic research.
Erotic Triangles returns to a part of the world I know well, though the topic is alien to my own natural resource emphasis. Yet I found it fascinating for its symbolic analyses of West Java’s musical and art worlds – intertwined intimately with the relations between men and women and among men. Its emphasis on triangles was the inspiration for me to structure my own analyses as a harp (another ‘triangle’), within which the strings signify traits that men value in a given culture. Spiller’s analysis inspired my own analogy between the creation of harp music and the clusters of values that influence men’s identities, their personal and cultural ‘songs.’
In West Java, Indonesia, all it takes is a woman's voice and a drumbeat to make a man get up and dance. Every day, men there - be they students, pedicab drivers, civil servants, or businessmen - breach ordinary standards of decorum and succumb to the rhythm at village ceremonies, weddings, political rallies, and nightclubs. The music the men dance to varies from traditional gong ensembles to the contemporary pop known as dangdut, but they consistently dance with great enthusiasm. In "Erotic Triangles", Henry Spiller draws on decades of ethnographic research to explore the reasons behind this phenomenon, arguing that…
I am a philologist with a passion for Atlantic cultural history. What started with a research project on the African-American Pinkster tradition and the African community in seventeenth-century Dutch Manhattan led me to New Orleans’ Congo Square and has meanwhile expanded to the African Atlantic islands, the Caribbean, and Latin America. With fluency in several foreign languages, I have tried to demonstrate in my publications that we can achieve a better understanding of Black cultural and religious identity formation in the Americas by adopting a multilingual and Atlantic perspective.
In this fascinating study, Chasteen examines the historical experiences that molded Latin American popular dance from an Atlantic perspective. It delves into the “deep” history of Latin American culture and analyzes the development of dancing culture in its socio-historical context. This is not only a well-researched, but also a well written and oftentimes funny book that is broadly accessible. It is a must-read for any new scholar interested in the field of Black performance culture. Although the focus is on Latin America, Chasteen’s study reveals connections that are also of great importance to understanding the historical development of Black dance culture in North America.
When John Charles Chasteen learned that Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, danced on a banquet table to celebrate Latin American independence in 1824, he tried to visualise the scene. How, he wondered, did the Liberator dance? Did he bounce stiffly in his dress uniform? Or did he move his hips? In other words, how high had African dance influences reached in Latin American societies? A vast social gap separated Bolivar from people of African descent; however, Chasteen's research shows that popular culture could bridge the gap. Fast-paced and often funny, this book explores the history of Latin American popular dance before…
The most important words of advice my incisive editor at Knopf, Victoria Wilson, gave me while I was laboring upon my biography of Martha Graham – coming out in October, you can pre-order it now – was to say that “she was not a goddess, and you don’t want to worship her.” Yes, I had the nerve to take on this formidable and forbidding figure as a result of bearing witness to her anti-War masterwork, Chronicle, on a winter evening fourteen years ago. Yes, I believed that modern dance was the missing link in my long exploration of American modernism. And yes, I believe that I have proven my point, painting Martha Graham’s portrait as a person – rather than an icon.
I am sure many of you already know this visionary philosopher from his ground-breaking The Hero With a Thousand Faces. You may not be aware that Campbell was married to Jean Erdman, one of Martha Graham’s principal dancers in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Campbell’s initiations to modern dance came at Sarah Lawrence College when witnessing Erdman as Graham’s student; and then at Bennington, where Erdman performed with Graham’s company. His own learned background in the archetypal ethos of C.G. Jung made Campbell a prime candidate for Graham’s deeply-digging, Nietzschean/ecstatic archaic/abstract movement vocabulary. The choreographer and the professor spoke the same kinaesthetic language, Erdman remembered. There were many late nights when “Martha would call Joe on the phone” with some arcane question about her mythographic pieces in progress – Night Journey and Errand into the Maze. Many of Campbell’s essays in this book were first published in Dance Observer…
Joseph Campbell’s collected writings on dance and art, edited and introduced by Nancy Allison, CMA, the founder of Jean Erdman Dance, and including Campbell’s unpublished manuscript “Mythology and Form in the Performing and Visual Arts,” the book he was working on when he died.
Dance was one of mythologist Joseph Campbell’s wide-ranging passions. His wife, Jean Erdman, was a leading figure in modern dance who worked with Martha Graham and had Merce Cunningham in her first company. When Campbell retired from teaching in 1972, he and Erdman formed the Theater of the Open Eye, where for nearly fifteen years they…
Dance has always been an important part of my life. I specialized in dance in college (Denison University) and graduate school (MFA, University of Michigan) and danced professionally for twelve years. As a dance educator, I’ve taught in colleges, conservatories, schools, and community centers, teaching toddlers, senior adults, and every age in between. I’ve authored two books for teachers, three picture books, articles in journals, and verses for children’s magazines. I share my passion for dance by writing and teaching, and visiting schools, libraries, and book festivals. I believe that every child should have the opportunity to participate in the arts; they are essential and transformational forces in our lives.
This colorful picture book, with whimsical illustrations by Maine Diaz, takes the reader on a journey through ten different kinds of dance from around the world. There are pictures of a widely diverse cast performing the dances, from Kuku to cha cha to disco to break dancing.
In addition, movement words like "glide," "dip," and "tap" will inspire children to dance along with the fun and playful words and illustrations.
This rhythmic showcase of dances from all over the world features children of diverse backgrounds and abilities tapping, spinning, and boogying away!
Tap, twirl, twist, spin! With musical, rhyming text, author Valerie Bolling shines a spotlight on dances from across the globe, while energetic art from Maine Diaz shows off all the moves and the diverse people who do them. From the cha cha of Cuba to the stepping of Ireland, kids will want to leap, dip, and zip along with the dances on the page!
I am an ex-lawyer, ex-army officer, and ex-Hollywood film editor who loves stories about females in danger who dig deep to solve problems and survive. I can’t claim to be an expert, but I marvel at the breadth of female styles–from delicate, feminine, and sweet to brave, adventuresome, and tough. I have edited films about various women characters, from Charlize Theron’s killer in Monster to Cate Blanchett’s spiritual medium in The Gift and Diane Lane’s brave romantic survivor in Under the Tuscan Sun. I have three successful step granddaughters: an accountant, a lawyer, and one getting a PhD in computer studies. Smart, talented, and interesting women people in my life.
I loved eight-year-old Viva’s struggle to connect with her entrancing but erratic mother, Charlotte. Viva is desperate to get away, partly because she’s afraid of becoming her mother. I was entranced with their endless, joyful, though stress-filled, hours together. I was delighted to see Viva find herself in her talent for dance.
And I was heartsick that Viva’s success paralleled Charlotte’s descent into drink as she faced the reality of her own failures as an artist. I rooted desperately for Viva to avoid her mother’s mistakes and take control of her life.
Winner, Independent Publisher Book Awards, Silver Medal - Literary Fiction
Featured on PBS NewsHour
Named by Good Morning America, New York Post, and Los Angeles Daily News as one of the Best Books of Spring 2023
A deeply moving debut novel from the award-winning author of Yes, Yes, Cherries ("Funny, brave, and amazing"-Lorrie Moore) that explores the relationship complexities between mothers and daughters, the desire to escape, and the longing to connect. Viva has always found ways to manage her mother's impulsive, eccentric and addictive personality. She's had to-for her entire life,…
As a Latina living in the US, I encounter stereotypes about me and my culture. I am sure I have my own blind spots around other cultures and people. So, I like stories that break traditional tropes. Initially, fairytales were dark and used as moral teaching tools full of warnings and fear. I prefer retellings that spread joy and challenge assumptions. Lastly, I love to discover new—real or imaginary—places through the illustrations and the artist’s point of view, especially if it influences the twist.
This book shares my Andean setting and love of dance, so I am already rooting for it. I am immediately connected with the main character as she twirls down the path. I can relate to the wolf as well; I know how language barriers can cause misunderstandings. A clever twist to a beloved classic. The art is full of energy and captures the joy in the dance moves.
A 2024 Anna Dewdney Read-Together Award Honor Book
An irresistible rhythm tugs at Moni's heart as she dances down the path to la casa de Abuela. But Moni's corazón skips a beat when she spies a strange set of ears - setting her own orejas on alert. Lobo must be near!
In this modern interpretation of a classic fairytale, readers tango along with Moni as she sways to the music that follows her through the woods. In a clearing, Moni stumbles upon Lobo . . . playing a bandoneón? Moni can't help from tap-tap-tapping to the tune, but when the…
