Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle is a picture book in the purest sense: there are only pictures, no words. But the pictures tell a great story of a little girl named Flora who wants to be graceful and sleek and dance like a pink flamingo.

Flora is decked out in flippers, a pink bathing suit and a yellow swimming cap. She approaches the flamingo as the bird sleeps, gracefully balancing on one foot. Flora takes her stance and the flamingo begins to dance. Flora imitates her and the two perform graceful moves until Flora flubs a step and the flamingo makes fun of her. Soon though, the two patch things up and go on to perform flawlessly together.

The illustrations, mostly in pink with white negative space sharpen the focus on the simple lines used to create Flora, the flamingo, and beautiful blossoms on a flowering tree. There are also flaps to look under on many pages, and it’s fun to see that often the story changes when the flap is opened. For instance, one page shows both Flora and the flamingo with their heads tucked to their sides, but when you open the flaps on both of them, you see that they are sneaking peeks at each other.

There’s a great demo video set to music that shows how the book works. Flora and the Flamingo may be just the thing for your budding dancer. It also shows the power of friendship and how friends can bring out our insecurities as well as help us overcome them.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.