Tag Archives: Ballet

350C: Short story compilation

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It’s a short story compilation, I think all by the same author. One story is about a cancer support group up in some mountain-y commune, and a child dies by accident at the end. Another story is about two best friends with one of their boyfriends. He’s kind of awful, and I think there’s a scene where the three of them are at a roller rink. Another story is from the second person, and it’s about a frumpy redhead who is too skinny for ballet? At the end she gets to ride bikes with this boy.
I know this is a long description. The cover is of a forest, with a few kids on a rope swing jumping in a pool.
It’s amazingly written. I read it like 8ish years ago so it was published before that

344X: Secret Pointe Shoes

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I had a flash of a memory of a childhood book.  I have googled and googled but can’t find it, and it is driving me crazy!!!  So here goes the parts I remember:

It was a book about girls, not sure how many, that take ballet classes at a studio which I think was located in a mall or a strip mall.  Rival studio that is fancier is a possibility but more vague memory of that so could be wrong.  One of the girls sees a pair of pointe shoes in the store that are an unusual color, maybe purple?  And she decides she wants to get them and learn how to use them, but she does it in secret because her ballet teacher says she is not at all ready to start with pointe.  There is something that makes her feel like she is less than the other girls and that leads her to use the pointe shoes in secret.  I think she even ruins her feet and ballet progress in the process.  I also want to say that it is a part of a series, either a ballet series or as a ballet focused book in a larger series.  Also very good chance it was a book fair book , I got a lot of books that way.

341N: 80s/90s dance book: poor teenage girl (Sal?) at local dance school

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I am looking for a book I read years ago, probably in the mid-nineties. It was about a teenager who went to a dance school and I think her name was Sal. Her family was quite poor so they often worried about money. I think she stayed at home with her parents for a while but they lived quite a long way from the school so she had to move closer, and they had an argument about that. Her parents weren’t keen on her going to the school anyway: maybe they wanted her to get a 'sensible job'.
The dance style was contemporary or ballet. I don't know about the location except that it was the UK or USA.  It was set in the present day when it was written, but that would have been in the 80s or 90s.

I remember very little of the story. At one point she realised she wasn't as supple as some of the other students so she stayed behind to do extra training. At the very end there is a show by the students and she was doing a solo. She got on stage and decided to abandon the dance she'd planned and just improvise with how the music make her feel. At the end she felt it hadn't gone very well but then got loads of applause.

I think there was a romance element as well with another music student, although it wasn't just a romance tale. I've searched through heaps of lists of young adult dance books and on Google Books but I can't seem to find it.

‘Say Goodnight, Gracie’ by Julie Reece Deaver was suggested on another forum, but it’s not that. The dance aspect is central to the story I’m looking for, whereas it’s just a supporting story in ‘Say Goodnight, Gracie’.

Jean Ure as an author was suggested as well, but most of her books seem to be for slightly younger readers.

I don't think this was amazing literary writing or anything, but for some reason I remember this book and would love to find it again.

341B: Little Girl Reluctantly Learns Ballet

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I read this book many, many years ago in elementary school. It is about a girl whose parents sign her up for ballet lessons. She doesn’t like ballet and is not excited to attend her lessons. She has an older sister who has been taking lessons for a few years already, and isn’t necessarily happy that her little sister is also taking classes. I remember a certain part where the younger sister is in the locker room and is mortified by the disfigured feet of the older girls in the ballet school.

In the end, she learns to enjoy taking lessons. This is really all I can remember.

319D: A Young Ballerina’s Struggles

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The book is juvenile fiction about a young girl, age 9, who dances ballet.  She wants to start using toe shoes but everyone tells her she is too young.  She goes on a summer vacation to the beach and meets a famous ballerina and her choreographer husband who decide to stage a shortened version of The Nutcracker at the grand hotel where they are staying.  The girl is invited to participate even though she is not staying there.  The owner’s spoiled daughter makes a fuss and is cast as Clara.  She had started dancing with toe shoes but it is causing too much stress on her developing feet and she can’t dance very well.  I think her name is April.