Book to Boogie: “The Little Yellow Leaf”

Book to Boogie is a monthly series that pairs picture books with dance and movement activities for preschool story time. The series is curated by Kerry Aradhya of Picture Books & Pirouettes and written by a different guest writer each month. We hope that children’s librarians, as well as classroom teachers and dance educators, will find these activities useful and fun!

by Liz Vacco

I recently discovered The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger. What I love about this book—especially in the context of using it as inspiration for movement—is the poetic language, accompanied by equally unconventional “illustrations.” I use quotes because the word illustration falls short in describing the artwork in this book. It seems, from Carin Berger’s website, that it is more appropriate to call it design. The pictures on each page are like replicas of collages she’s made using a multitude of materials, often arranged in unique configurations.

These designs also give the book’s audience a sense of the artist’s process, appearing hand drawn or painted on graph or lined paper and then enhanced with other forms and materials. The page preceding the title page, in fact, looks like a slightly aged piece of graph paper with a thin, dotted line curving and figure eight-ing across it, traveling from one edge to the other. So, right from the start of the book, one can find impetus for movement!

From the title of the book, one might conclude that this line maps the journey of the titular leaf through the air. As a nice warm up in marrying movement with reading, one might start by asking students to get up on their feet and begin to move in a similar curving path around the room and then back to their spots to begin the story. And all this can happen without even encountering a word beyond the title yet!

The words to follow are equally inspiring. I return to my first point about the poetic quality of the language used in this book. Although a handful of words might be typical ones presented to students in a movement experience—swirled, soared, and danced, for example—many are much less conventional and, consequently, challenge students to come up with creative physical portrayals. Some of these more esoteric action words include beckoned, teased, bloomed, gathered, flurried, and held tight. And the solutions students find are always just as interesting as the language provided.

The verbs in the story are not the only sources of dance inspiration. Other phrases incite exploration of other movement elements. Berger mentions a “heavy harvest moon,” welcoming a physical exploration of movement quality. She plays with linguistic expectations when she writes “the sun sank slow,” inviting students to play with tempo.

There is also a simple narrative in the book, telling the story of a leaf that refuses to fall from its tree throughout autumn and even into some snowy and icy days. In the end, the single leaf discovers another leaf in a similar situation, and together they decide to let go of their respective branches and dance through the air. Here, one more movement element makes its way into the story and asks to be explored—that of relationship. In a class of K-2 students, we even revisited the story a second time (during the next class meeting) and paired up as yellow and scarlet leaves, so partners could experience moving separately and then together. We discovered even more richness in the language and resulting movement possibilities as we revisited the text.

I have no doubt that my students and I will return to this book at least once—if not several times—each year. Most likely this will happen when, as Carin Berger puts it, “a chill fill[s] the air.”

Liz Vacco.

With a bachelor’s degree in theatre studies from Yale University, Liz Vacco has been a dance, yoga, theater, and early childhood educator for 13 years in New York City and now Los Angeles. She has taught through the New York City Ballet’s Education Program, the California Dance Institute, and various studios and public schools, while also performing in and choreographing for professional productions. As of 2015, she oversees the dance program at Gabriella Charter School, a California-based public charter school at which all students dance daily. She is a strong believer in arts education and promoting physical well-being and opportunities for artistic expression to people of all backgrounds. She is currently pursuing her multiple subject and kinesiology credentials and M.A. in education at Cal State LA. For more information about Liz and to learn about her original ballet video series for kids, titled Petite Feet, please visit http://ift.tt/WESDAv.

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