Franz-Ferdinand The Dancing Walrus

by Marcus Pfister

Overview

Where there’s a walrus, there’s a way!


Bull walrus Franz-Ferdinand doesn’t like to move. But when he sees a flock of ice gliding flamingos dance, he discovers his love of ballet. When he decides he wants to join the graceful dance troupe, no one believes it’s possible. Will Franz-Ferdinand prove them wrong?

The Rainbow Fish creator Marcus Pfister’s humorous new story strengthens our belief in our own dreams.

A tale as sparkly as its art.
Booklist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780735844698
Publisher:	NorthSouth Books
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Marcus Pfister was born in Bern, Switzerland. After studying at art school in Bern, he trained as a graphic artist. His first picture book was published by NordSüd in 1986, but his breakthrough as author and illustrator came in 1992 with the publication of The Rainbow Fish. Since then he has published more than 60 books, which have been translated into about 65 languages and have won many international awards. He lives with his family in Bern.

Editorial Reviews

Pfister’s (The Rainbow Fish) chatty, unhurried text has the feel of impromptu narration from a family member, and Franz-Ferdinand is a marvelous creation—a wrinkly, speckled gray behemoth who exudes lighter-than-air grace and joy as he dances amid the pink flamingoes and dappled sea ice.

Publishers Weekly

2021-09-24
An old, movement-averse walrus disrupts the status quo when he decides to learn ballet.

From the creator of The Rainbow Fish comes an underwhelming parable about the value of hard work in the face of closed-mindedness and tradition, set against a backdrop of ongoing environmental crises. Franz-Ferdinand, who at 42 has already surpassed the average walrus life span, lives on the east coast of Greenland, where he surreptitiously observes the rehearsals of Madame Flamenco’s troupe of flamingo ballet dancers (they have been displaced by climate change). After practicing in secret, the head bull walrus requests an audition. No one expects Franz-Ferdinand to succeed at ballet, a fact underscored by a questionable subplot in which he, in need of a “suitable piece of clothing” that isn’t “too feminine,” constructs a tutu out of literal ocean trash that fits his “big fat tummy.” Yet, despite this equation of his large body with garbage, his performance is so impressive and his speech so surprisingly “cultured” that Madame Flamenco falls “madly in love” with her new student, leading to the creation of a walrus ballet company. While the stylized illustrations successfully convey the anthropomorphized animals’ emotions via expressive faces and body language, they omit any visual evidence of walruses’ practicing (as opposed to performing) ballet, which contradicts the book’s heavy-handed message of perseverance. The lengthy text impedes the narrative, while its playful tone downplays human complicity in climate change and ocean trash and elides any context or resources for the environmental and social issues it vaguely references.

Disappointingly shallow. (author's note) (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews