Elephant Dance

Elephant Dance: A Journey to India

Author: Theresa Heine

Illustrator: Sheila Moxley

Publishing Company: Barefoot Books

Copyright Date: 2004

44 pages

Multicultural - India

                I discovered the book Elephant Dance by Theresa Heine while looking for different examples of multicultural books to use within the classroom. When reading this book, I was very interested in the content. I found the way the illustrator explained India to be very interesting. Heine opens the book with Ravi’s, the young boy and main character within the book, Grandfather moving from India. Understandably, Ravi is very interested in what India was like for his Grandfather. Ravi asks question after question about India in order to understand this foreign land.

                I thought the illustrations seen within this book were very interesting. They were all created with very bold, bright coloration as you can see from the illustrations on the cover of the book. Sheila Moxley did this with the use of acrylic. Her illustrations are all double spread as to fully depict all of the Grandfather’s stories of India. The text was spread across the top of both pages.

                This book would be most suitable for younger elementary grades. With that being said, I think this is a great piece of text to use in the classroom. This text would be great in order to introduce India to students. This text not only includes information within the story about India, but it also includes a map in the story from where the Grandfather drew India with Ravi. At the end of this book is a great section introducing what it is like “Living in India.” This section includes information about the geography, religions, culture, animals and food seen within the India. I would also use this book to compare and contrast India to where we live. I think this would be a great way for students to see just how different, and similar foreign countries are to our own. The next way I would use this book within my own classroom would be for your students to discuss what they would tell someone about America much like Grandpa did with India. This would be a great activity to reinforce the idea that our own cultural can be seen very different from others.