One of the most widely used ethnographies published in the last twenty years, this Margaret Mead Award winner has been used as required reading at more than 600 colleges and universities. This personal account by a biocultural anthropologist illuminates not-soon-forgotten messages involving the sobering aspects of fieldwork among malnourished children in West Africa. With nutritional anthropology at its core, Dancing Skeletons presents informal, engaging, and oftentimes dramatic stories that relate the author’s experiences conducting research on infant feeding and health in Mali. Through fascinating vignettes and honest, vivid descriptions, Dettwyler explores such diverse topics as ethnocentrism, culture shock, population control, breastfeeding, child care, the meaning of disability and child death in different cultures, female circumcision, women’s roles in patrilineal societies, the dangers of fieldwork, and facing emotionally draining realities. Readers will laugh and cry as they meet the author’s friends and informants, follow her through a series of encounters with both peri-urban and rural Bambara culture, and struggle with her as she attempts to reconcile her very different roles as objective ethnographer, subjective friend, and mother in the field. The 20th Anniversary Edition includes a 13-page “Q&A with the Author” in which Dettwyler responds to typical questions she has received individually from students who have been assigned Dancing Skeletons as well as audience questions at lectures on various campuses. The new 23-page “Update on Mali, 2013” chapter is a factual update about economic and health conditions in Mali as well as a brief summary of the recent political unrest.

Dance healing is available to everyone! Without even stepping into a dance class, you have access to one of the most powerful healing modalities and can benefit from the profound joy, strength, grace, and love that dance offers you! We all have a skeleton in our closet, something that we have done or that has happened to us that has made our lives difficult, has caused us pain, and has left physical, mental, and emotional scars. Imagine the possibilities when you learn to dance with your skeletons and ultimately heal them in such a way that you will never put them back in the closet again! Dancing with Your Skeletons is a three-part book offering you three separate ways to experience dance healing. The book as a whole can also be an amazing tool to gently and easily facilitate dance healing in your own life. Every dance begins with one step. Reading this book is your first step in a new, beautiful, and exciting dance.

The French police call on the Skeleton Detective when a dog digs up some human bones: “Terrific” —Publishers Weekly Les‐Eyzies‐de‐Tayac is known for three things: pâté de fois gras, truffles, and prehistoric remains. The little village, in fact, is the headquarters of the prestigious Institute de Préhistoire, which studies the abundant local fossils. But when a pet dog emerges from a nearby cave carrying parts of a human skeleton—by no means a fossilized one—Chief Inspector Lucien Anatole Joly puts in a call to his old friend, Gideon Oliver, the famed “Skeleton Detective.” Once Gideon arrives, murder piles on murder, puzzle on puzzle, and twist follows twist in a series of unexpected events that threaten to tear the once sober, dignified Institut apart. It takes a bizarre and startling forensic breakthrough by Gideon to bring to an end a trail of deception thirty‐five thousand years in the making. Skeleton Dance is the 10th book in the Gideon Oliver Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A rendition of a traditional African American spiritual.

Just In Time For Halloween! (comes with FREE "The Skeletons' Dance" coloring pages too!) "In the graveyard Hallows' Eve the spirits roam, beware! Eagerly they hide and wait for all the kids to scare! Shrieking wind is now composed until the gang arrives; Music they will play to bring The Skeletons' Dance alive!" Book Description: Kids everywhere will love this hilarious, yet spooky rhyming tale that takes place in the graveyard on All Hallows' Eve. From spinning skeletons to a ghost who has to touch everything, this story is sure to make you laugh! You and your kids will fall in love with the crazy illustrations as well as the poetic nature of the book that make reading it as much fun as hearing it read. Join in and be reminded of the FUN you had as a child on Halloween night! As you read it again and again, you'll find something NEW to see every time!