Footloose

September 5, 2016
Loggins’s chart-topping 1984 single, cowritten with Dean Pitchford, returns with new lyrics to fit the zoo setting of this picture book adaptation, packaged with a CD recording. Instead of kicking off Sunday shoes, Loggins invites readers to “slip on their dancin’ shoes” and join a rowdy cast of animals who show off several dancing styles. There’s rock and roll—represented by apes in headbands and tie-dyed shirts (“Jeez, Louise, rockin’ the chimpanzees”)—llamas in tutus, tangoing tigers, and an elephant deejay spinning “funky, hop-hopping grooves” on a turntable. Bowers (Dinosaur Pet) maintains a high-energy atmosphere as the zoo comes alive by night, and his heavily brushed paintings create a sense of whirling, twirling movement on each page. Some of the trying-to-be-cool moments miss the mark—see the aforementioned deejay, as well as “Luke, too cute, funkiest cat at the zoo” in his backward cap, leather jacket, sunglasses, and gold chain—but the revised lyrics offer a fun way for parents and grandparents to “cut footloose” with a new generation. Ages 2–6. Illustrator’s agent: Rubin Pfeffer, Rubin Pfeffer Content.

September 15, 2016
Two children who hide in the zoo after closing witness zookeeper Jack getting down with all the animals in this re-envisioning of the iconic movie song.Inspired by new grandparenthood (as he reveals in a performer's note), Loggins has rewritten the lyrics to one of the 1980s' biggest earworms to recount a dance party at the zoo. "All the animals are watchin' / to see if everyone's gone. / Gettin' ready to party, / they're gonna be dancin' till the dawn." The white zookeeper boogies with chimps, wolves, lions, and more, while the surreptitious visitors (both light-skinned; one with a black pageboy and the other with close-cropped brown hair) look on with excitement before joining in. Bowers' textured, full-bleed double-page spreads are appropriately kinetic and playful, depicting a quartet of tutu-clad llamas in midjete, a hip DJ elephant spinning LPs with forelegs and trunk, and a hippo dressed for a hoedown in white cowboy boots. The range of dance styles indicated by costume spans ballroom dancing to hip-hop. The new variations on the familiar refrain will probably be easy enough for adult readers to manage in a read-aloud, but the new verses' scansion may be difficult to parse. A CD embedded in the back cover, performed by Loggins, is immeasurably helpful in establishing the rhythms. "Slip on your dancin' shoes," indeed. (Picture book. 3-7)

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 15, 2016
Preschool-G In many ways, Loggins' 1985 Grammy-winning hit, Footloose, is a natural fit for kids. Irrepressibly bouncy with slingshotting verses and a shout-worthy chorus, it's just the sort of thing that gets kindergartners leaping up and lurching (sorry, dancing) around. So this rewritten, 31-years-later picture-book adaptation makes sense. Forget the moral-religious connotations of the movie; here, night is falling on a city zoo, which means it's time to cut loose, put on your dancin' shoes, and all that. Monkeys don fringed vests, wolves get top-hatted, llamas turn out in tutus, the elephant gets DJ bling, and so forth. Loggins' constant usage of names ( Ooh whee, / Lucy, / shake it, shake it for me ) requires clumsily labeling characters, but otherwise Bowers' colorful, canted, chirpy illustrations are appropriately busy and undulating. Young readers likely won't mind the total lack of story, but they may find the text puzzling. The repeated phrase, lose your blues, never seems to match the cadence. Until, of course, kids memorize the included CD. Which they will. So get ready.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2017
Loggins strains to be kid-pleasing in the new lyrics to his 1984 hit song ("Five rhinos in a row, / all jumpin', bumpin' to the / Mr. DJ Elephant's / funky, hip-hoppin' grooves"). There's no story--just animals cutting loose after the zoo has closed for the evening. Bowers's boisterous art captures the party animals losing their blues. A CD is included.

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)