My Friend Maya Loves To Dance by Cheryl Willis Hudson

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My Friend Maya Loves To Dance was written by Cheryl Willis Hudson. She is the author of a dozen books for children, including BRIGHT EYES, BROWN SKIN (coauthored with Bernette G. Ford) and COME BY HERE, LORD: EVERYDAY PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN. She says that HANDS CAN was inspired by her own children. "I was amazed by the versatility, dexterity, utility, and even gracefulness of such small fingers," she says. "I began to see hands as marvelous works of art, and I wanted to somehow capture that vision in a children’s book." [1]

Summary

A young narrator tells readers about her friend Maya, who absolutely loves to dance. In this rhyming picture book, Maya attends a lively dance class. She can’t get enough of dance: the costumes, the grand entrances, the pirouettes, the music, the final bow, and the magic of recitals. She even loves the hard work of practice. But why doesn’t her friend dance, too? The pages themselves seem to dance, thanks to the charming verse of Cheryl Willis Hudson and the vibrant colors and motion of Eric Velasquez’s painting. [2]

Pros

A verified reader named Susan said she enjoyed this book. She appreciated that the protagonist Maya is both female and of African heritage. She also liked that overall the book was populated by people of colour. The illustrations in this book are exquisite. She painted and find the human form very difficult to draw. Velasquez captured not just human forms, but ones in motion, and that seemed to really be moving in their beautiful dancing moves. She also initially thought these pictures were done in coloured pencils because of their delicate details and so was surprised to learn that they were, in fact, done in oil paints. Finally, Vleasquez did a fabulous job of not just capturing the movements and details of the characters, but also the lighting and shading of the scenes. For her, the only drawback was in the rhythms of the text. The rhymes worked fairly well, but several times, she found the lines to have a beat too short or too many. These hiccups made reading seem a bit like walking up an uneven set of stairs. [3]

References

  1. Cheryl Willis Hudson. goodreads.com. Retrieved January 16th, 2021
  2. My Friend Maya Loves To Dance by Cheryl Willis Hudson, Illustrated by Eric Velasquez. aalbc.com. Retrieved January 16th, 2021
  3. https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/29698492-susan. Retrieved January 16th, 2021