Ellie's Chance to Dance (Royal Ballet Diaries Series #1) Book

Ten-year-old Ellie Brown is an American girl living in London. For Ellie, ballet isn't just a dream, it's become a way of life. She's danced for almost as long as she can remember and started ballet lessons when she was four. Now Ellie is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime-a chance to audition for a spot to dance with the Royal Ballet. But Ellie knows that even if she won a place, it would mean moving to London and leaving her ill-stricken mother behind with no one to care for her. When the day of the audition finally arrives, Ellie must decide between pursuing her dreams or sacrificing her goals of joining the Royal Ballet to be with her mother. What will Ellie do?

Publishers Weekly

The Royal Ballet School Diaries jet s to a spirited start with this tale of a 10-year-old who moves from Chicago to England with her widowed mother, who has taken a job as a professor at Oxford. Ellie shares her thoughts through diary entries interspersed throughout the narrative, and readers learn that she is anxious about starting a new life yet thrilled that she has been accepted as a Junior Associate at the Royal Ballet School. The girl makes fast friends with several classmates, yet must contend with a barrage of barbs from popular Rachel. As the time approaches to apply to the competitive ballet school as a full-time boarding student for the following year, Ellie feels apprehensive about leaving her mother, who has multiple sclerosis, and she is also troubled by her mother's blossoming relationship with the mailman. Rachel makes an unrealistic about-face from nasty to nice, after learning about Ellie's father's death and mother's illness, and, given the series' title, there's little doubt about whether Ellie will apply to the ballet school-and be accepted (despite the facts that she misses her preliminary audition due to another of her mother's MS attacks and botches the final audition by crashing into another dancer). Still, Moss's facility for characterization and dialogue and her plot's carefully measured emotion will likely make readers wish to tune in for another performance. Ages 9-12. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.