BALLER INA

Loving ballet and basketball, Ina brings high jumps, twirls, and layups to both.

The light brown–skinned girl on the cover, her hair in two Bantu knots, pairs her ballet tights and tutu with basketball shorts and sneakers. The rhyming story opens with Ina warming up at a ballet barre on the sidelines of a basketball court. Illustrating Ina’s parallel enjoyment of ballet and basketball, Casal balances a double-page spread of the girl striking six ballet poses with one of her performing six basketball moves a few pages later. And the fact that her dribble and plié require the same bending and her grand jeté resembles a leap on the basketball court suggests not only that she adores them both, but that ballet enhances her basketball playing and vice versa. When a light-skinned blond basketball player points at Ina and says, “Dancers dance and players play! This is B-ball, not ballet!” Ina replies confidently, “Wait until you see me fly.” And fly she does. While there’s a sweetness to Casal’s wonderfully composed digital illustrations, they also carefully show the parallels between ballet and basketball as well as the protagonist’s sense of community with other, racially diverse players and dancers, in the artistic details, color choices, and dramatic overhead shots. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A beautiful tale that grants young readers permission to be all of who they are.