Drumbeat in Our Feet

 

Drumbeat in our Feet is a multicultural literature book by Patricia Keeler. This book can be read from ages 6-11. This book is visually appealing and starts with an overview of the origins of African dance traditions that highlights the diversity of African peoples, cultures, and landscapes. Throughout the book it explains how dances are passed on to children, different types of dances, costumes and body painting, honoring ancestors, musical instruments, drums, and performance. This book will allow students to develop questions that they can research. Students will be able to learn all about the culture and their dancing. A question that a student could come up with is why do they dance, why did some where a mask and why do they have symbols painted on them? All these questions can be answered and the students could do a great project out of this and could do a fun fact presentation like a did you know board. For Example: Did you know each white dot on a child's arm stands for a dancer that came before her? And the zig-zag design painted on the children's bellies represents crocodile teeth? Many African secrets are can be revealed when researched! This book is awesome because it is so real and you get to learn about another cultural and it is about something that is not really seen in the U.S. When I read this book I was so interested and learn so many different things. It is great to learn about another culture. This book made it fun by the rhymes and the pictures made it so live like.