RATTLESNAKE DANCE

The author of All About Rattlesnakes (not reviewed) proves a better naturalist than songsmith here, preceding an eerie lyric about a cavern full of rattlers in a trance, swaying in unison with a musical arrangement (done by Christopher Drobny) that features a spoken portion, a bewildering array of repeat signs, and notation for two dances supposedly on “page 32”—though the book’s pages are unnumbered, and there is but one dance described on the last page. With fitful rhyming and variable line lengths, the text does not read smoothly, and the pale watercolors of freely drawn, happy-looking snakes with fixed smiles and equally fixed eyes are likely to evoke shivers rather than the suggested snaky undulations. This reptilian jamboree just doesn’t have the finger-snapping, hip-swaying rhythm of Libba Moore Gray’s Small Green Snake (not reviewed) or Gail Jorgensen’s Crocodile Rock (not reviewed). (Picture book. 5-7)