Cover Unavailable 

(2015). Dance and Sing in English [Online video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRP_viB3Xjk

Dance and sing in English is a bilingual Japanese/English children’s book. This book is primarily for Japanese reading children who need an outlet to learn to read English. The book is unique in that it goes through some basic English, however, it includes music words. The book talks about numbers, the English alphabet, and some random songs like thread is spinning- and rock, scissors, paper- what shall we make?.

This book just does not cut it for quality children's literature. The book is cute and has a lot of fun songs in it, but the purpose of it to learn English isn't very applicable to everyday English words. For example, children learning English probably won’t need to learn needle and thread and gravel as primary English words. Also, if the book's purpose is to learn a principle, there isn't any principles in the songs or stories. The book is more about a mix of two cultures. The book has very white illustrations in the book and does include any other racial identities.

Don’t get me wrong, this book is adorable, however, for the purpose of learning English or learning principles, it’s very difficult to access the quality from that point of view. It just really isn't there. Singing about soap bubbles and such. Also, stereotypes of English speakers are clearly listed as white cutie pies. What’s interesting about the book is that I found it through an online YouTube review of the book. The Japanese girl giving the book review seemed to like it, however, in the classroom it really isn’t an applicable source to use. I would say, this book may have more use as an English speaker trying to learn Japanese with the Japanese hiragana subtitles. 

Literary Elements:

Tone: Happy, Cheerful

Characters: Imaginary, Dreamy

Setting: Rainbows, grassy fields, and musical pleasures

Lexile: n/a