Digger Dance

"A young boy is highly skeptical when his grandmother tells him that the machines at the nearby construction can dance, and he wants to see this for himself. But there are setbacks. and the child has to be patient and fill the time in other ways --- ploughing through books, digging through the toy box, building and bulldozing. When Grandma decides to bake, the child eagerly joins in, because Baking is almost as good as watching diggers. / We line up our equipment and we're ready! This very imaginative child turns baking into a great opportunity to do all sorts of digger-related actions I try to scoop sugar, but it's hard as a rock. / I have some excavating to do! / My arm is a high hoe, my hand holds a bucket. / I scrape and thump to crush all the lumps, / then shovel smooth sugar into the bowl. Finally, just as the cookies go in the oven, the skies clear, and the child is off! And in a wonderful run of text and art, the diggers come to life: One digger dips low, another lifts high. / They dig and load. / They bend, then rise ... This way, that way, together, apart. They dip, they swing, they dump, they spin! They pound and push, they shovel and roll! ... turning, spinning, bowing, bending ... It turns out that yes, indeed, the diggers do dance! And then, a satisfying surprise ending that brings us back to the cookies, as the child does a digger dance, all the way home. Features a warm, loving, intergenerational relationship between a boy and his grandmother. Component of social and emotional learning, as the child must practice patience and self-regulation during the long wait, and cope with small disappointments when the diggers aren't working. The words dance off the page in this energetic read-aloud, and the feeling of dancing is enhanced by the rhythm of the text."--