To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel Book

Book Review:
I loved the illustrations. Loved the color, Loved the ribbons that ran through it. Loved it! The writing...mmm, it was a bit disjointed and clunky but over all it worked.

A bunch of other ramblings...
When I was a kid we were poor. Not Frank McCourt poor, not we might have to eat the dog poor. but still, poor.

poor like, no insurance poor, and going to McDonalds was a MAJOR TREAT poor, wearing socks for gloves in the winter poor, and babysiting the siblings at the berry field that my mom managed poor.

Poor enough to be nostalgic about poverty, that kind of poor.

Being that kind of poor meant owning your very own something/anything was a big deal and being 1 girl in house with 3 brothers (and a sister to follow much later - hi megan!) meant girl things were even more of a big deal!

And I owned my VERY OWN, VERY GIRLY book of ballet dancing. It was a how-to with a pink cover and black and white photos of a girl, appearing to be suspended in space doing 1st position, 2nd position, etc.

Somehow I had also obtained a leotard which I dubtifully put on and stood at the back of my coach (ballet bar), and studied the floating girl as I attempted to duplicate her suspended grace.

Then my house burned down and the book went with it.

But this book reminds of that time and that makes me happy.

prologue:
my dad stopped being a journalist and my mom started getting paid for her art work and not only did we get actual gloves and new school clothes ocassionaly, we got MOON BOOTS!!!woo-hoo and most importantly, while books always remained somewhat sacred they were not quite as hard to come by.
yay for childhood memories of books!

Then my dad stopped being a journalist