Dancing Boy Book

In this wordless story the world of adults stands still, as a wee naked boy dances through town like a mini-Pied Piper enticing other children to cast off their woes and their ...

Jane Harrington - Children's Literature

This wordless book opens with a little boy—carefree and naked—skipping down a rural road, and into a small town. There he is noticed only by the children, who, one by one, shed their clothes and dance along behind him. When the line of kids reaches the edge of town, the boy dances away. The town's children then return to whatever they were doing, and slip back into their clothes. Though the author's intention is probably whimsy, some readers may find this story sad, or even disturbing. The adults seem so detached from the children, and do not notice when their boys and girls undress and leave their sides. (A close inspection of the sequence of illustrations does show that the adults are frozen while the kids are gone, but this is not at all obvious to the casual reader.) An analogy drawn between the boy and the Pied Piper, on the flap of the book, is also rather—ahem—grim, since that fairy tale town lost all its children when they followed a stranger. The watercolor illustrations, though, are absolutely beautiful. 2005, Star Bright Books, Ages 3 to 6.