Maurie J. ManningCritiques

Laundry Day: A shoeshine boy in early 20th century NYC goes on an adventure to find the owner of a lost red scarf. He encounters immigrants from all over the world as he hops from fire escape to clothesline. The illustrations are engaging and have few visual gags. The foreign phrases gives this book an extra boost, and could probably be used as a title for the Social Studies Common Core Standard. But I am confused as to what category this book falls into. Is it a picture book or is it a graphic novel? It has panels like a comic but I'm not sure.

This book is a good multicultural tool for the classroom because it has some Spanish content in it. The story shows a strong loving relationship in this family and it is a clear example of a different culture. Beautiful and colorful images.

I loved this book, I thought it was super catchy and really cute for the kids. It's a great continuing book and the illustration are bright with tons to look at in each photo.

Recommended by Teachers College Writing Institute

We do not have this in our personal collection

Said to the rhythm or sung to Johnny Comes Marching home, a little girl drums all the "aunts" through town and through a rainstorm.

Kitchen Dance is a sweet book about two children who wake up and see their parents dancing and singing as they clean the kitchen eventually joining in on the fun.
As far as this book being used as a mentor text, there is a good example of a simile in the story. It states that as her parents are dancing, "Laughing, she spins into his arms, then out again, like a yo-yo on a string." What a great use of a simile, and it gives very good imagery of the dancing action. Also, there is a good example of proper punctuation in a story.
This was such a fun read, seeing the parents have such a good time dancing and cleaning at the same time. This could be a nice way of telling children that cleaning can be fun. Also, we see the great relationship between the mother and the father, and the love they have. It's even sweeter when they are not upset the children are awake, but allow them to join. You can really feel their love. They also have many Spanish and English parts of the story, in particular when Papa is singing. The illustrations are colorful, beautiful, and expressive, really showing us the dancing and simultaneous cleaning very well. I really enjoyed this book and I think young readers would too.

A picture book with a graphic novel feel. . . Great for read aloud- short, but the illustrations are so wonderful! Check out the author's website:
http://www.mauriejmanning.com

48 months - beautifully illustrated with comic book like elements. Not really our kind of read aloud but we can appreciate the artistry.

Two children wake and up peek in the kitchen to find their parents dancing and singing and cleaning.

The Aunts go Marching is an adorable and fun book to read. It starts off with a little girl, and who I assume to be her aunt, marching down the street while it is raining, and the little girl was beating on her drum. As the little girl and her aunt go marching down the street and the little girl beats her drums, more "Aunts" join in on marching like actual ants. This story has a very cute rhyme scheme, that kids will be sure to love and want to go along and know what is coming next.½

Great book for PK to grade 1 to focus on the letter A, counting, homophones and predictions.

"Kitchen Dance" is s story that demonstrates the love dance between a mother and a father. When the children join in, the Spanish family dances with love in he kitchen. Along with singing in English, they sing and speak some in Spanish as well. This story shows the love a family has, and the culture differences among people. The illustrations captivate the reader and makes the pictures feel real and in the moment.

The adventurous lengths a young boy goes to to return a found strip of red cloth in a New York City tenement neighborhood full of immigrants. Who knew cats like matzoh ball soup?

Cleaning up the kitchen has never looked so fun! Our unnamed narrator is starting to go to sleep when she hears noise coming from the kitchen. She wakes her brother and they sneak down to discover their parents who are cleaning, singing and dancing! Soon the entire family is involved in the impromptu party until Mama and Papa bring the kids back to bed.

The illustrations, executed in digital watercolor by the author, start out in muted tones of purples and grays perfectly suited to the night time house, but when the children peek into the kitchen, the colors explode into bright yellow, greens, and whites that perfectly match the festive scenes.

Spanish words are interspersed throughout the text, some of them as the song being sung in the kitchen. While the text doesn't rhyme, there is definite rhythm and some subtle alliteration ("Together they tango across the room with the leftover tamales.") that makes this a pleasure to read aloud - brave souls could even make up a tune for the song the family sings together. The text is too long for the very youngest listeners, but would work well for good preschool listeners up through first or second grade at least.

Overall this is a celebration of a lovely evening of family togetherness and could be used for all sorts of storytime themes such as: dance, music, family, cooking/kitchen, or Spanish language. Kitchen Dance would also be an excellent bedtime book.

Used for dance themed storytime March 2009; Terrific Ts (3/24), Preschool (3/24), and Family (3/26).

A simple picture book, with a simple lesson of kindness, but the images are a nice image of what life might have been like in the twenties or thirties, during the influx of immigration and merging of people into crowded cities. Now everything is bright and clean and the community was a mix of different peoples, but it was a neat representation. I think it could be used to teach students a little about helping others and being kind. It also could be used to teach about times during immigration. I loved the fact that the scarf was so bright red, and it was so different from the background. I would want to make sure my students' noticed that too.

In a bustling city, a young shoeshine boy seeks the owner of a red scarf which has fall on him from somewhere above. Climbing fire escapes and clotheslines, he goes further up,up the apartment building as neighbor after neighbor make suggestions as to who owns the scarf. A multinational cast of characters populate the building. A sweet and simple tale.½

Manning, M. (2012). Laundry day. (Ill. by M. Manning). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Farcourt.
40 pp. ISBN: 978-0547241968.(Hardcover); $16.99.

Manning is both the author and illustrator of this children’s graphic novel. She has illustrated other books and written a few of the books illustrated. Laundry Day blends fantasy and realism as the reader follows the journey of a shoeshine boy trying to return a scarf to its owner. This is a great book to read with children when discussing diversity because the boy travels through various neighborhoods and meets a great variety of people on his journey. Throughout the book, there are some phrases written in dialogue bubbles and other phrases written in a foreign language that are translated to English in the final pages of the book. For this reason, and the complicated storyline, this book is a better selection for older children.

This is a multicultural realistic fiction book that appears to be done in colored pencil. It would be used in the primary grades. In this book, a little girl and her brother wake up to find their parents dancing the night away in the kitchen, presumably after a party at their home. For awhile the brother and sister silently watch their parents dance in the kitchen, but as soon as they are noticed, their parents make them join in. Although the culture of which the family is a part of is never mentioned, they are of darker skin color, eating tamales, and doing the salsa. From this, we gather that the family is of Latino heritage. The family dances the night away until the brother and sister fall asleep in their parents arms.
This is a good example of realistic fiction because the depictions and things that happen are realistic and could happen easily.
This book characterizes the mother as a lively woman full of life and full of love by making her happy, smiley, full bodied, etc. The words used to describe her are reinforced by the illustrations.
This book could be used for multicultural explorations, especially to begin understanding Hispanic cultures and be a conversation starter.
This book could be used in a discussion about families and different things they can do/enjoy together.

The is a story about a liitle boy who has gone to bed, but heard noises from the kitchen and decided to take a look. As he and his sister peeked throught the door he saw mom and dad dancing and laughing. They were having so much fun unitl suddenly mom catches a glimpe of the children watching them. They opened the door and the children joined in the fun, unitl they were so tired mom and dad put them back to bed and they fell fast asleep.
This is a great book for all ages. I like the beautiful bright pictures, it makes me happy.

We could do a lesson plan on dancing, what we might find in the kitchen. We could have a dance of our own. we could talk about cleaning up.

This book goes to the rhyming song "The Ants go Marching". Instead of animal ants, this story uses human aunts. This is a fun book to read when learning rhyming and counting. The illustrations show the details behind the text.

Summary: A little girls wakes up to the sound of singing and movement in the kitchen downstairs. When she and her brother, Tito, sneak downstairs they find their parents dancing around the kitchen together just in time to get swept up into the dance.

Genre: Realistic Fiction

This is a book about a little boy and girl who woke up to noise they heard from the kitchen as they tiptoed for a closer look they saw their mother and father dancing in the kitchen using the kitchen spoons and lids for instruments as they continued to dance around the room. Suddenly, they saw faces peering through the door, they scooped the children up and danced. The children grew tired and mother and father put them back into their beds

This is a wonderful book, it shows love, partnership, and sharing responsibilities among adults

Dancing activity with instruments, and you could talk about what items you have in you kitchens at home.

I think that this book would appeal to children of many different ages, as it is a twist on a familiar rhyme. It also includes very nicely done illustrations that are really what creates the story behind the rhyme.

This was a nice book. It shows a happy brown family having fun together in a late night kitchen dance. The story is not especially remarkable, but it is noteworthy for showing a happy family who is not white (surprisingly rare in picture books) having fun together, with occasional Spanish words thrown in the mix.

Librarians might consider this title for storytimes, and let the children dance around while reading/listening to the story. It might also be a good choice for programming for or about Latinos/as, just because there are a few interspersed Spanish words.

The story of two children who awake in the middle of the night to sounds of music coming from the kitchen. As they go explore they find their parents singing and dancing around as they clean. The family then breaks into an all out dancing party in the kitchen until the children are so tired they fall asleep in their parents arm and are whisked back to bed.