Pipi Dance product reviews

My wee family lives in a small coastal town and my children and I will quite frequently go for a walk and visit one of the two beaches we have close by. It is not uncommon for us to end up going into the water and looking for the various species of shellfish that we have on offer, in particular pipis, mussels and cockles. While browsing KIWIreviews I spied 'Pipi Dance" and knew instantly that this book would be relevant to my children. but also, that it would be a much-loved addition to our small school's library.

The cover illustration is absolutely stunning, the amount of detail that the illustrator has managed to capture with the waves that look real, the items in the water and the people shows talent and thought, I had high hopes the images in the book would be just as impressive. Upon opening the book to start reading we were not let down, the illustrator has a keen eye for detail and has shown this on every page, my son in particular liked the crab that looked like it was smiling, and then when it had bitten the poor boy.

The first page we are introduced to the two main characters, who are a mother and her son, the son asks if he can help the mum and then on the next page, we find out that he wants to help her gather some kaimoana for their family, in particular they were searching for cockles and pipi for tea. The storyline focuses on how to find the shellfish under the sand, and the author has made a catchy song to a dance called the Happy Pipi dance, which gives the instructions for effectively finding the shellfish.
The son follows his mums' instructions but during his hunt he meets a crab - on the end of his fingers, aside from this sure enough in no time they had plenty to feed everyone.
The next day the shellfish is cooked over a fire and shared with Nan and Koro, at the end of the story the son is teaching one of his little friends the Happy Pipi dance so they can gather a feed too!

I loved everything about this book, the illustrations are perfect, and the storyline flows nicely and matches the images on the page. My favourite sentence from the book is "When you gather kai together and you cook it up to share, it's a way to show each other how much you really care." My children were fans of the story also and have now incorporated the dance when they hunt for pipis down at our local beach, I look forward to sharing this book with our local primary school.