This picture book biography of Josephine Baker combines a blues-tempo narration with double-page colour spreads that fizz, pop and jump with movement in homage to the dance style that made its charismatic practitioner famous. The story of her journey away from poverty and racial prejudice in St. Louis and New York to international fame in Paris is told in snappy rhythms and rhyming couplets in relatively simple style - scattering fascinating scraps of information (such as her taking a pet cheetah for walks along Parisien boulevards) to lend her story the air of a jazz age fairy tale. An author's afterword adds more biographical facts which describe her commitment to racial integration and civil rights.