Dance


 * Theme - Dance **

**Dancing in red shoes will kill you** by Dorian Cirrone (Kayla Callaway has prima ballerina grace, but also something that most ballerinas don't have: a full figure. Her heart is set on a future in dance. Unfortunately her proportions just got her cast as an ugly stepsister in Florida Arts High School's production of Cinderella. Kayla's disappointment makes her a prime suspect when the dance troupe receives a string of threatening messages).

 **Bunheads** by Sophie Flack is about 19-year-old Hannah Ward, who, due to her talent and extremely hard work, is a senior corps member with the Manhattan Ballet. Just as her career really begins to take off, she starts dating... and ultimately realizes that she's going to have to pick one or the other. If you're looking for a behind-the-scenes look at the ballet world, this is the one.

**Various positions** by Martha Schabas is about 14-year-old Georgia Slade. She's a student at the Royal Toronto Ballet Academy. While there is, of course, a whole lot of ballet in this one, the focus is actually much more on Georgia's somewhat confused feelings about sex and about her sexual awakening... which involves one of her instructors. The writing is quite lovely, but be prepared for some seriously uncomfortable moments.

**Ten cents a dance** by Christine Fletcher. With her mother ill, it's up to fifteen-year-old Ruby Jacinski to support her family. But in the 1940s, the only opportunities open to a Polish-American girl from Chicago's poor Yards is a job in one of the meat-packing plants. Through a chance meeting with a local tough, Ruby lands a job as a taxi dancer--a girl paid ten cents to dance with any man--and soon becomes an expert in the art of fishing as she works her patrons for meals, clothes, even jewelry. Drawn ever deeper into the world of dance halls, jazz, and the mob, Ruby gradually realizes that the only one who can save her is herself.

**Step up and dance** by Thalia Kalikipsakis. When Saph receives a Valentine's Day card from the man of her dreams, she can't believe her luck. Already she's doing what she loves - dancing in a cheerleading squad for a professional basketball team. But Saph's luck runs out when she realises the Valentine's Day card was a hoax. Soon she discovers who really sent the card. That's when the games begin...

**House of dance** by Beth Kephart. When Rosie stumbles into the House of Dance, she finds a way to restore the source of her grandfather's greatest joy. (National Book Award finalist)

**Will** by Maria Boyd. It all started when Will mooned the girls' school bus. It wasn't his finest moment. And it's the last time William Armstrong will sully the St. Andrew's community, says Principal Waddlehead-er, Waverton…

**A company of swans** by Iva Ibbotson. Weekly ballet classes are Harriet Morton's only escape from her intolerably dull life. So when she is chosen to join a corps de ballet which is setting off on a tour of the Amazon, she leaps at the chance to run away for good. Performing in the grand opera houses is everything Harriet dreamed of, and falling in love with an aristocratic exile makes her new life complete. Swept away by it all, she is unaware that her father and intended fiance have begun to track her down...

**Dancing in the dark** by Robyn Bavati. Ditty was born to dance, but she was also born Jewish. When her strictly religious parents won't let her take ballet lessons, Ditty starts to dance in secret. But for how long can she keep her two worlds apart? And at what cost?

**Mao’s last dancer** by Li Cunxin (and also the movie). The extraordinary biography of a young Chinese peasant boy who emerged from abject poverty, defected to the USA, and became principal dancer for the Houston ballet, a star in the US, friend to George and Barbara Bush, and a star of the Australian ballet as well.

**Billy Elliot** by Melvin Burgess (and also the movie). Eleven-year old Billy Elliot is different from other boys. He is not very clever or good at sport. Then, one day, he discovers ballet dancing. Finally he has found something that he can do well. But everybody knows that ballet is for girls, not boys! Will Billy continue to dance? Or have his father and brother got other plans for him?