For our ReadItMummiesAndDaddies 2013 theme week encouraging dance and movement, Simon Tuck (who penned the  groovy and stomach-churning "Dwaine Pipe" books we featured a while back) has come up trumps once again with a great rhyme to make up a groovy coconut-cracking dance to (I'll apologise for the image I scribbled to accompany it - but Sy's rhyme rocks!)

Try this out on your tiddlers, and see what sort of crazy moves and dances they can come up with (great activity for a first day back at school for Wake up, Shake up sessions!)

Take it away Sy!

Pick The Coconut!

Pick the coconut
Pass the coconut
Catch the coconut
Crack the coconut
Slurp the coconut
Burp the coconut
Climb the coconut tree

Push the pineapple
Pull the pineapple
Slice the pineapple
Dice the pineapple
Munch the pineapple
Crunch the pineapple
Climb the coconut tree

Three bananas
Four bananas
My bananas
Your bananas
Steal bananas
Peel bananas
Climb the coconut tree!

A blissfully wonderful panel from "Oliver Button is a Sissy" by Tomie dePaola

For our #ReadItMD13 theme week, we issued a plaintive cry on Twitter for books that feature dance and movement - and in particular include boys. There's no reason why the boys should feel left out when it comes to dance and movement (Charlotte's school has some amazing street dance classes that are well attended by boys who have picked up on fab performance artists from stage and screen).

The wonderful Zoe over at Playing By The Book put us in touch with the equally wonderful Kerry Aradhya who has put together the definitive source of dance and movement-based books on her brilliant blog "Picture Books and Pirouettes".

If anyone would know where to look for books about dance and movement that show boys needn't feel left out, Kerry would - and she came up trumps with a fantastic set of recommendations.

Oliver Button is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola (Harcourt)

"Oliver Button is a Sissy" by Tomie dePaola is a great book with a strong message. Oliver prefers books, painting, drawing and also tap dancing - yet he is ostracised and teased about these things by children at school who think boys should be into rough-and-tumble play and sports. Empathising with Oliver, this is a book I feel duty bound to hunt out as soon as I can - though it's fairly old now, it's amazing how relevant the book's content and message is even today. It is still in print (hooray!) and available from Harcourt Publishers.

"Max" by Rachel Isadora. So full of energy it practically leaps around your tabletop!

Next on Kerry's recommendation list is "Max" by Rachel Isadora. As you can tell from the fabulous cover, it's an energetic book featuring a brilliant and engaging character - that will have you hooked from front cover to back. Max is a baseball fanatic but when he wants to warm up for games, rather than stretches and running about, Max discovers his sister's dance class is the perfect way to get fit and enjoy movement.

Again, it's an oldie but a goodie (first published back in 1984), again with plenty of relevance for today's young readers.

What's next Kerry?

"Ballerino Nate" by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and R.W. Alley (Dial Publishing)

How about a balletic wolf with a style all his own? "Ballerino Nate" (Nate the Ballerina) is a fab story about Nate the wolf, who absolutely wants nothing more than to become brilliant at ballet. Despite his older brother's teasing, Nate sets out on a determined path to prove everyone wrong - and once and for all show that boys CAN enjoy ballet too!

That's just a small selection of the books that Kerry recommended. If you're interested in dance and movement, and want to find the planet's best resource for children's books on the subject, you really need to visit "Picture Books and Pirouettes" as it's utterly chock full of brilliant content, with regular roundups and recommendations from Kerry and other bloggers. Come join the fun!

"Rumbelow's Dance" by John Yeoman and Quentin Blake. Not a TV in sight!

As kids head back to school, and as the summer slowly mellows, there's still plenty of time to join us to celebrate this week's #ReadItMD13 Theme Week. We're taking a look at children's books that feature dance and movement. Balletic bouncing, energetic exercise - even yodelling while you Yoga!

Our header image is from the wonderful "Rumbelow's Dance" by John Yeoman and Quentin Blake (Andersen Press). These two esteemed gentlemen know exactly how to imbue a book with whizzing energy and bum-wigglingly frenetic movement. Quentin Blake's artwork always looks like it's about to leap off the page and dance a merry jig across your table top so it's a very good place to start!

In a similar vein, and with artwork that's eerily reminiscent of Quentin Blake's fabulous work, it's also worth checking out "Milli, Jack and the Dancing Cat" by Stephen Michael King (Allen and Unwin).

"Milli, Jack and the Dancing Cat". Join them for a carefree and merry jig!

Beautifully illustrated again with the sort of movement in its characters that children will love emulating, it's a lyrical and lovely story that says it's perfectly okay to be different - in fact it's bloomin' marvellous! The hornpipe-dancing cat is so awesome, we love 'im to bits.

"Milli, Jack and the Dancing Cat" has made the leap to the stage - and here's a clip of one production.



We've always loved Child's Play's range of books that celebrate dance and movement - in fact you can start your little ones off as early as you like with the board book range to sing and jiggle along to.

"Hop a Little, Jump a Little" by Annie Kubler (Child's Play). Starting out with movement and motion.

Matching nursery rhymes to actions is a brilliant way to build children's confidence in movement and expressing themselves. Most children get used to 'performing the actions' to rhymes like "Incy Wincy Spider" and there are some fab "Baby Gym" books in Child's Play's extensive range for the really tiny.

Barefoot Books are also keen to see your children stretching, moving and showing off their funky poses.

"My Daddy is a Pretzel" by Baron Baptiste and Sophie Fatus (Barefoot Books). Can you be a tall tree?

We picked up "Yoga Pretzel" cards when we first visited Barefoot Oxford's fantastic new store in Summertown, and have also recently loved the "My Daddy is a Pretzel" story book, which had the three of us at home twisting and flexing (and probably doing ourselves all sorts of mischief) as we attempted to turn ourselves into human pretzels. Seeing Charlotte managing to touch the top of her head with her foot made me wonder if I was ever that double jointed (probably not) and made me vow to continue scoffing cod liver oil capsules like they were going out of fashion. Yoga is brilliant for parental bonding (really, trust me on this) particularly with some of the exercises that require co-operation and trust. Give it a try, it's not as hard as you'd think.

With a young ballet obsessive in the house, we have seen (and loved) quite a few ballet books on the blog.

Ballet Kitty Ballet Class by Bernette Ford and Sam Williams (Boxer Books)

"Ballet Kitty - Ballet Class" by Bernette Ford and Sam Williams (Boxer Books) continues the adventures of Ballet Kitty as she begins her first ballet class along with her two best friends. Ballet Kitty is initially a bit fussy about Ginger Tom joining in. He wears trainers, he hasn't got the right kit but nevertheless he's enthusiastic and can't wait to join in! A great book that gets boys used to the concept that dance and movement isn't just a 'girl thing'.