Impossible to put down—even if ballet isn’t your thing.
Three young ballet dancers go through changes in Landis’ middle-grade novel.
Three narrators—Lauren, age 12; Serena, also age 12; and Bryan, age 11—each tell their stories leading up to their ballet recital: a rendition of Alice In Wonderland, choreographed by Patricia Dallarosa, a principal dancer at the nearby, highly acclaimed Pacific Northwest Ballet. Before their performance, they have some critical obstacles to overcome—this is the year their ballet class must pass their pointe exam and start learning a more challenging element of the art. Lauren and Bryan, along with their friend, Caroline, have been friends forever; they grew up taking ballet together on Mercer Island near Seattle. Serena is the newcomer. She moved with her family from New Jersey after a tragic accident took her older brother Theo’s life. Serena’s mother and brother were also ballet dancers, and Serena has trained hard at an advanced school in New Jersey. For Serena, working hard to fulfill her mother’s ambitions for her means giving up her other interests, including science and singing. Before Serena showed up, Lauren was the star of the ballet class. Lauren loves ballet with all her heart, but her father is adamant that ballet will never be a fruitful career. Lauren’s parents’ worries about money (and her wild older brother, Josh) cause tensions in the home which Lauren is always trying to counter by being “the good girl.” Bryan is a Black ballet dancer, the target of bullying at school, and seemingly a disappointment to his father, who is always trying to get him into therapy for being “different.” Bryan loves ballet but also yearns for his father’s acceptance.
Each character has something to learn: Serena must find her true passion, even if it isn’t ballet; Lauren must work harder at her passion and prove herself, even if it means ruffling feathers at home; and Bryan must grow to love himself and stand up for who he is, which will ultimately earn his father’s pride. This is not just a story about ballet—it’s a story about leaving childhood behind and entering adolescence with a sense of identity and confidence. As Bryan puts it: “Going on pointe also meant growing up, taking responsibility, and accepting that my successes and failures had more to do with what was happening inside me than external things I couldn’t control. The daily rigor, all those relevés at the barre to strengthen my muscles, rising up and down repeatedly, was the physical manifestation of the work I was doing inside. Getting stronger. More experienced. Wiser.” The story braids together the three narratives elegantly; the three friends support each other, challenge one another, sometimes let each other down, and ultimately work through each conflict to become better, both as individuals and as a group. A few pages feature black and white pencil sketch style illustrations that neither add to nor detract from the text. The prose is beautiful, and the novel’s themes of personal discovery, empathy, friendship, grief, and family dynamics are explored with subtlety and depth.
Impossible to put down—even if ballet isn’t your thing.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9798988307822
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Rhododendron Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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