Ready, Set, Skip by Jane O'Connor illustrated by Ann James

I can't skip.

I wish I could.

Other kids are really good.

I can leap.

I can creep.

I can twirl? Just watch this girl. ...

But I can't skip. 

It's not my fault.

Exuberant is the word I would use to describe the illustrations in this book which was published in 2007. This is a perfect book to share with a group of preschool children as a way to talk about the idea of 'not yet'. For myself I found lots of things like skipping and riding a bicycle very hard when I was a young child BUT these are both things you can learn and develop with practice. My former school had an extensive dance program and one of the ways the dance teacher assessed the children who auditioned was by asking them to skip. I think this was the first time I realised even older children can find skipping is a complex skill.

I know this book is out of print. I was so lucky Ann James herself gifted me a copy in mint condition with a dust jacket! You might be lucky and find a copy in a school or local library.

Kirkus gave this book a STAR review:

The narrator of this effervescent exercise in rhyme cannot skip. She can leap, creep, twirl, skate and “BURRRRRRRRRRP!”—but itches to add skipping to her repertoire. Her wise mom asks, “Can you hop?” and, after a perfectly child-calibrated burst of same (“I can hop and / never stop! / Watch!”), bestows the key to the elusive gait. “‘Hop on one foot. / then the other. / That is skipping,’ says my mother.” O’Connor’s deft turns of phrase masterfully capture the initial glumness and ensuing buoyancy, delivering a text perfectly pitched for both story time kids and emergent readers. Australian illustrator James’s charcoal-shaded watercolors beautifully limn that buoyancy, capturing the narrator’s whirling activity and multifold facial expressions in spot illustrations against a crisp white layout. In a brown bob cut, shorts and bare feet, this little one (with her constant companion, a doting dog ... ), embodies a hallmark symbiosis of childhood—joy expressed as movement, and movement, a joy in itself.

I learned a new word from this review: limn - to represent in drawing or painting.

I wonder how Ann James came to illustrate this book. US Author Jane O'Connor is famous for her Fancy Nancy books and lots of others - over 100 titles.