BALLEWIENA

For a dachshund with dancing feet, “sit” and “stay” are just so passé.

Possessed with the soul, if not the body, of a ballet dancer, Dotty would much rather pirouette and glissade down the sidewalk than heel like her polite poodle sisters Jazzebelle and Miffy—and so when her severe trainer Ms. Austere sends her to obedience school, she runs off in tears: “All I want to do is dance.” Despair is transformed to delight, however, after she meets Louis-Pierre, an acrobatic park squirrel whose offer to teach her a thing or two about training and discipline leaves her well prepared to walk onstage at the canine Golden Bow Talent Show and wow the crowd with her grand jeté and pas de chat. Even Ms. Austere is impressed…enough to allow Dotty to transfer to l’Académie de ballet aux pitous. In the delicately drawn illustrations, Bender puts long-bodied Dotty on comically stubby hind legs and, along with joie de vivre that shines from the pages, kits her out in a red tutu and, oddly but as befits her name, a stylishly mottled hide. Ms. Austere is White, but the other dog owners at the show, all depicted (unlike their colorful pets) in monochrome, show a range of skin tones. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A grand addition to the animal corps de ballet.