Yara just moved with her parents to a new city and the thing she is most excited about is taking ballet classes in a real studio.  She meets a diverse group of friends at Shimmer and Shine and is completely devoted to ballet.  When she finds out the owner of the building, Dame Audrey, plans to shut down the studio, she hatches a plan to save it.  Upon learning that Dame Audrey used to be a dancer, Zara’s friends and their teacher, Miss Diamond, agree their best shot is to perform Sleeping Beauty, which Dame Audrey was supposed to star in before getting injured. The show is progressing well, but Yara is so obsessed with ballet that she falls behind in school and is forced by her parents to pause on ballet until her schoolwork is caught up.  Once Yara figures out how to balance her priorities, she returns to class and she and her friends put on a successful show!  

This sweet book for 2-4th graders is the first in the series, written by a principal dancer of the Royal Ballet,  and will be especially popular with kids who enjoy dancing or stories about friendship and perseverance.  There are black and white drawings throughout the book that help capture the emotion of the story.  Readers can find definitions of the French ballet terms in the glossary but unfortunately there isn’t a pronunciation key.  Backmatter also includes diagrams of the characters demonstrating the five feet and arm positions as well as a summary of Sleeping of Sleeping Beauty.  

Reviewed by Lindsay Varnum, Orono Public Library