Jake at Gymnastics by Rachel Isadora (review)

In this companion to Bea at Ballet, Isadora once again takes a preschool activity and celebrates it through focus on a participating child. Jake, a young Asian-American boy with a shaggy row of bangs, arrives at gymnastics class ready to begin. The children go through a series of stretches and guided activities (“Let’s be frogs and hop today”) before starting on the equipment: a tunnel, balance beam, trampoline, ball pit, etc. The multicultural cast of preschoolers takes turns, observes, and cheers each other’s successes, and teacher Dave is always on hand to guide and assist. The simple narrative clearly conveys class activities, beginning with the start of the class and ending with the dismissal (“Right before we go home, Dave says, ‘Let’s be birds.’ We spread our wings and fly out the door”), and while there’s little additional story, the narrative effectively captures the children’s enjoyment of the class session. Oil paints add glowing panels of color in clothing and hair accessories to the simple ink and pencil-drawn figures floating on white backgrounds. The brushstrokes in the painted elements add texture and directionality to the illustrations, and the clean layout keeps the focus squarely on the kids. This would lend itself well to a kinesthetic storytime wherein participants move along with Jake and his friends.