Ballewiena

Written and illustrated by Rebecca Bender

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-137-3

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

June 2022

Let's get some joy in our lives. Dance, dogs, and fulfillment will do just the trick with Rebecca Bender's Ballewiena.

From Ballewiena by Rebecca Bender

Dotty dreamed of being a ballet dancer. She knew how to plié, assemblé and pirouette. She could chassé, glissé and do a pas de chat (even though she was a dog). But Ms. Austere did not appreciate Dotty's moves and, while she trained Dotty's poodle sibs Jazzebelle and Miffy for the upcoming Golden Bow Talent Show, she took the dachshund to the Canine School of Obedience. 

From Ballewiena by Rebecca Bender

But obedience school was not for Dotty who "tried, she really did, but something inside her made her spring up into an elegant entrechat." Despondent, Dotty runs into the park after class and meets Louis-Pierre, a squirrel and an acrobat. Louis-Pierre invites Dotty, whom he calls Pitou, to work out with him and teaches her, by some unusual pedagogical means, the value of practice in gaining skills.  

From Ballewiena by Rebecca Bender

Still, when the Golden Bow Talent Show comes around, Dotty is expected only to watch from the audience. But, Louis-Pierre has other ideas and liberates Dotty to show off her skills and reveal her true ballerina self.

Young readers will know Rebecca Bender's storytelling from her award-winning Giraffe and Bird series (e.g., Giraffe Meets Bird; Giraffe and Bird Together Again; Don't Laugh at Giraffe) but she does as well by dogs as she does with giraffes, birds, hedgehogs and ducklings (e.g., How Do You Feel?) and more. She makes us care about her characters who are all expressive and one-of-a-kind, whether they are pets or wild. That's because her stories are those lived by children. Dotty may be a dog but she could be any child who feels her dream is being stifled and who wants to express herself through dance. I suspect that Rebecca Bender is a herself ballet parent, one who has learned much from attending classes with little ones. In fact, I myself learned much about ballet through the text of Ballewiena but also in her incredible endpapers that depict a variety of ballet movements and their phonetic pronunciations. Yes, Ballewiena is about ballet, and would make a great gift for any child who enjoys dance classes, but it has important messages about following your aspirations and being true to yourself while ensuring that you put the work in so it becomes a goal and not a pipe-dream.  

Rebecca Bender's illustrations, created with gouache, watercolour, pen and ink, as well as digital media, carry those messages through worlds of colour, shape and attitude. Her assortment of canine and other characters conveys a depth of personality beyond the dance. (I was especially taken with Louis-Pierre who, with his sweatband and drawstring workout pants, has a je ne sais quoi quality that is adorable, even as he coaches Dotty through rigorous training.)

Whether you're a dancer, an appreciative fan or neither, Ballewiena reminds us to follow our passions and dance fully in our lives.

Nutcracker Night

Written by Mireille Messier

Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-091-8

40 pp.

Ages 3-7

September 2019

At this time of year, many families will be planning their annual excursion to a performance of the Nutcracker, a ballet scored by Tchaikovsky. Whether your child is fortunate enough to attend or perhaps even perform in it or not, Mireille Messier and Gabrielle Grimard's Nutcracker Night will bring the magic of that performance to the page and hence to every young reader.

From Nutcracker Night by Mireille Messier, illus. by Gabrielle Grimard

A young girl delights in being taken to her first performance of the Nutcracker. From the Swoosh! of the cars and the Beep! Beep! of their taxi, their journey to the ballet begins with a subtle sensory burst. Her dress goes Swish! Swish!, her dad's shoes go Clip! Clop! Clip! Clop! and the two enter the  theatre, and get to their seats while the orchestra tunes up with a Pickle-dee! Zing! Boom! Ding!

Before the ballet has even started, the reader will recognize that Mireille Messier has made this event into an onomatopoeic exploration. The sounds of the audience and the orchestra are only the beginning because soon enough Marie (or Clara) is opening her nutcracker gift on stage and her brother Fritz is breaking it. When the clock strikes midnight with a Bong! or seven, Marie envisions the Christmas tree as colossal, and the mice and the soldiers begin their battle. After a welcome intermission, the Sugar Plum Fairy dances en pointe with a Takka-takka-takka, and the flamenco dancers and Mother Ginger and the polichinelles perform, before an ending that has the crowd applauding Bravo! Brava!

From Nutcracker Night by Mireille Messier, illus. by Gabrielle Grimard

Though the story of the Nutcracker, that of a young girl perhaps dreaming of a nutcracker come to life, is the basis for Mireille Messier's picture book, Nutcracker Night goes beyond a retelling of the ballet's premise. Instead it expands the many audible experiences of the performance and encompasses the whole experience from beginning to end of a special father-daughter occasion. There is the travel to the theatre, the audience's reactions and behaviour, an intermission of food, play and chatter, and an affectionate thank-you from a little girl to her father. And throughout, Mireille Messier invites a read-aloud with sound and expression.

Gabrielle Grimard's artwork, created with watercolour, gouache, oil, coloured pencil and digital media, evokes the magic and the affection of the experience for all participants. From the wide-eyed faces of the children to the action of the ballet, Gabrielle Grimard takes the reader into the theatre to watch, to hear and to appreciate the Christmas ballet.

Head to the ballet with Mireille Messier and Gabrielle Grimard's Nutcracker Night for a different kind of audiovisual experience and one that is perfect for the holidays. Like the nutcracker itself, Nutcracker Night opens up a tale for the season.

From Nutcracker Night by Mireille Messier, illus. by Gabrielle Grimard

Cape Town

by Brenda Hammond

Great Plains Teen Fiction

978-1-926531-18-2

326 pp.

Ages 14+

2012 

In 1989, Cape Town, South Africa is a place of life-changing dreams.  For Renee Pretorius, just 17, this big city, so different from her home on a sheep farm, holds the dream of becoming a ballerina with her attendance at the ballet school of the University of Cape Town (UCT).  But, for many of the millions of residents of Cape Town, their dream is for an end to apartheid, the laws enacted by the National Party (of the minority, Dutch-descendant Afrikaners) fifty years earlier, which had racially segregated the Blacks and Coloureds (a term for the mixed race of African, English and Malaysian) from the Whites. 

To keep her safe from the "dangerous left-wing students with their Marxist ideas" (pg. 12), Renee's family has found her residency at the Huis Marta hostel for Afrikaans meisies, White girls of Afrikaner heritage.  But, even ensconced at Huis Marta, Renee makes the acquaintance of several young people whose lives and backgrounds expose her to different perspectives of life in Cape Town.

A fellow hosteller Nicolette (Nic) Dupreez, a medical student, may be Afrikaner but she does not follow the strict expectations of Afrikaans meisies, regularly breaking rules at the hostel and enjoying a more contemporary lifestyle of jeans, dating and non-White interactions.  Whenever Renee is unfamiliar with the nuances of life in Cape Town, she often finds Nic to be a valuable, albeit less inhibited, resource and caring ally.

Dion October, a second year dance student and Coloured, is one of the first students at UCT to make Renee feel welcome, although her strict upbringing and fears of the Immorality Act cause her some trepidation about interacting with him and his family.  Though Dion and his family continue to suffer the consequences of apartheid (e.g., relocation, violence, restrictions), Dion is essentially apolitical, providing Renee with the perspective of the oppressed majority but without pressing her to abandon her family's politics.

However, it is Andy Miller, a fifth year architecture student at UCT, who has the greatest impact on Renee.  After Andy helps Renee with some research at the library where he works, and she recalls seeing him at a protest in the streets, their paths continue to cross.  When they begin dating, fiercely attracted to each other, Renee begins to wonder whether their differences are insurmountable, as Andy is English (and there is much animosity between the English and the Afrikaners), actively political in the anti-apartheid movement, and critical of the injustices perpetrated by the Afrikaner National Party.

As Andy and Renee's relationship becomes more serious and intimate, Renee finds herself questioning her family's politics and her Calvinist upbringing, deceiving her brother Etienne who works with military intelligence, and becoming both stronger and more vulnerable with her new-found freedom and knowledge.  Andy's mother, a member of the Black Sash (a white women's resistance group) astutely recognizes that, "Freedom always comes at the price of sacrifice." (pg. 289)

While Brenda Hammond leads the reader through the escalating strife marking the end of apartheid, Cape Town's narrative is never heavy-handed or brutally-worded.  It's a reality that is incidental for some and pivotal for others, and occasionally dragged from the periphery to the forefront, as happens for Renee.  But this metamorphosis is so gradual and hesitant here (with the occasional regression) that Renee becomes the embodiment of an eye-opening, guided from blindness to sight.  By tying that eye-opening with Renee's and Andy's powerful love, Cape Town persuasively takes a monumental issue and packages it in a story of undeniable passion.