To Dance: a ballerina's graphic novel

By: Siena Cherson Siegel

Illustrated by: Mark Siegel

Realistic Fiction/Graphic Novel

~This was a really cute book about how a little girl followed her dreams to become a ballerina. The little girl in the book is from San Juan Puerto Rico and she loved to dance especially when there are big open spaces. When she was 6 the doctor said she had flat feet and so her mother enrolled her in dance lessons to help her flat feet. She was too young for ballet so she did more gymnastics in her dance classes. She the moved to Boston for a year when she was 9 and took ballet lessons there and loved it! She then moved back to Puerto Rico and got to perform in the Nutcracker there. That summer she flew to NY t attend the American Ballet Theatre summer program. She wanted more than anything to be a real ballerina. When she was 11 she auditioned for the School of American Ballet in NY and was accepted. Almost all she did all day was ballet and she finally got her first set of tap shoes but they hurt her feet so bad. She kept on dancing. She finally got into her first ballet and her feet were no longer flat. When she was 16 her mom and dad divorced, and dancing was all she had to keep her mind off things at home. Dancing was her entire life until one day she got hurt. She decided she should go to college and she did. But ballet was still in her soul. She still danced in open spaces.

~This would be a great book when studying character traits. The girl in this book never gave up on her dreams and that is an important trait to teach students. Have write about their goals in life and create an outline of how they are going to accomplish these goals. Then have them drawl pictures along with the outline of the steps towards their goals.

~This was a