Giraffes Can't Dance But They Can Sure Tell a Good Story!

As 11am was approaching, the clock was ticking fast. The jolly toddlers and over excited babies piled through the doors, while the mums and dads chatted on the landing floors.

I flicked through my pile of books and was instantly drawn to my top 3 of the day.
'Two Monsters' By David McKee
'Owl and the Pussycat' By Edward Lear
And lastly, but certainly my favourite: 'Giraffes Can't Dance' By Giles Andreae.

The clock struck 11 and the little ones huddled round with their parents.
Up in the front for the first book, was me and my accomplice, Rob from the Children's Library playing the blue monster from Two Monsters, and me playing the Red one!
Two Monsters tells the tale of these terrible twosome, who live on 2 separate sides of a rather large rock. Sometimes they talk through the hole in the mountain, but they never see each other. One evening, they get into a silly argument about whether day is departing or night is arriving, which escalates into a rather verbally animated rock throwing fight, which eventually destroys the mountain. But lo and behold, the broken mountain reveals that they both were right, and that night was arriving and indeed, day too, had departed. So they become friends once again! 
The little kids of course enjoyed one thing the most... the colourful array of insults and hilarious abuse thrown between the 2 monsters. The parents also, couldn't help but let out the odd embarrassed blurt of laughter! 

Next we moved to a classic.  The Owl and the Pussycat.  We all know the how it  starts:

  'The owl and the pussycat went to sea, 

     in a beautiful pea-green boat.

     They took some honey, and plenty of money,

     Wrapped up in a five-pound note'

With a little bit of gentle guitar in the background from Rob, we were all drawn into this wonderful  tale of an epic sea voyage of these two courteous and mismatched lovers and their eventual marriage on the island of the bong tree; in the piggy-wig and his ring, the turkey vicar and the wedding feast eaten with runcible spoons.

Finally but by no means the least favorite, rather, the most favorited by all, was  'Giraffes Can't Dance' By Giles Andreae.

    This rather large in size book and wonderful tale, is Gerald the Giraffe who, as everybody know can't dance.
    Gerald is dreading the jungle dance. His skinny legs just can’t keep up, and his tangos and two-steps are always a disaster. What if the other jungle animals laugh at him? But one day, Gerald realises that it doesn’t matter that he’s different from the others. He just needs a different tune to dance to. 

    

    This joyous story about being yourself and playing to your strengths, was winner all round. With not only vivacious and charming illustrations, but a simple and beautiful moral about daring to be different and having tolerance to those who are different to us.

    There's nothing better than a story with beautiful pictures and a happy feeling in the end.  I know one thing for sure, everyone had a great time!
So much so, there were kids and parents who didn't want to leave, so I guess mission
accomplished; Gerald sure spread his happiness far and wide beyond the pages of the book.

Till the next story time, enjoy the sunshine and don't forget to dance when you hear some

music! 

By

Siggistardust