Robin Stevenson
Orca Book Publishing
Published October 1, 2013
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Fourteen-year-old Cassandra travels from her home in Australia to a highly competitive summer ballet program. At first Cassie tries to befriend girls who’ve been in the program for years, but it soon becomes clear that Melissa and her pals don’t stop at dancing your best in order to win. When Cassie gets blamed for a prank she didn’t commit, it becomes clear the girls mean to get her disqualified from an important audition. Cassie refuses to back down, though, and soon learns bigger lessons than dance technique.
Cassandra battles homesickness and bullying, making her an extremely relatable character. As a talented young ballerina, she faces big choices about her future and discovers that even the hesitation her parents feel about her future as a dancer can be a blessing. This is a short but nicely paced read which can most easily be enjoyed by someone with at least a cursory knowledge of ballet, though this knowledge isn’t necessary in order to follow the development of the story.
Very light.
Sexual Content
None.
Spiritual Content
None.
Violence
None.
Drug Content
A girl is prescribed a pain killer for a dance-related injury.
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I’m not very interested in ballet, so I probably won’t ever pick this book up, but it seems very cute. 🙂 I am a fan of summer-away-ish books, so then again, maybe I will. Thanks for sharing! 😀
For the most part, I thought the author did a good job making the dance world pretty easily accessible. There were a couple of moments where I think a short explanation of dance terms would have added to the ease with which people who aren’t familiar with ballet could enjoy the story. I liked that it dealt with things beyond dancing. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂