Lstirl's Reviews > Barnyard Dance

STOMP YOUR FEET! CLAP YOUR HANDS! EVERYBODY READY FOR A BARNYARD DANCE! And dance is just what every parent and child will want to do after exploring this book.

This book is complete in its ability to delight both parents and adults. The fun, comical illustrations are brightly colored and easy to recognize and are simply delightful. The book's language is heavy with engaging rhythm and catchy rhyme. There is just enough text on each page to keep very young children from getting bored while still having enough to move the story along.

The book also invites children to go a step further and stomp their own hands and clap their own feet so those that might have difficulty sitting to enjoy a story will still find a way to stay engaged. Furthermore, the repetitive sound effects are fun to replay while reading the story. This book manages to stay simple and brief while still having enough content and fun for both kids and adults. ~Leslie Stirling

Sandra Boynton has a knack for creating baby books with bounce. Her Barnyard Dance! Is a true romp of a board book, with cartoon farm animals that are wacky enough to make you laugh out loud, and rhymes clever enough to sustain those nearly infinite re-readings: "Stand with the donkey / Slide with the sheep / Scramble with the little chicks - cheep cheep cheep!" Now, here's a woman who really knows how to use an active verb. -- Parents, June 1994

I agree with this review completely. This book manages to appeal to even the shortest attention span with its active verbage and clever rhymes.


The popular illustrator and greeting-card artist brings oddball humor and plenty of sassy energy to Boynton on Board, a quartet of concept board books. Each volume features a die-cut front cover framing a picture of its ebullient cartoon stars. A zany sensibility gives an extra bounce to the otherwise conventional counting book One, Two, Three! A similar silliness suffuses Dinosaurs , which explores opposites. In Barnyard , farm animals dance a boisterous, breathless, knee-slapping reel called, with great panache, by a fiddle-playing cow: ``Bow to the horse. / Bow to the cow. / Twirl with the pig if you know how.'' The rowdy crew in Monsters bursts in upon a mild-mannered hippo and makes ``the mess that monsters make,'' but returns to make amends. Fresh and buoyant, these books are good, clean fun. Ages 1-4. (Publishers Weekly)

Again, I agree with this review completely. Fresh, buoyant and good clean fun are exactly how I would describe this board book.