WINNIE DANCING ON HER OWN

Jacobson (Moon Sandwich Mom, 1999, etc.) does a skillful job of showing the heart-wrenching emotions felt by a child left behind by unfeeling friends in this easy novel for girls interested in ballet. Winnie, Zoe, and Vanessa have managed to be best buddies without bickering since kindergarten, but things change in third grade when Zoe and Vanessa want to take ballet lessons, and Winnie doesn’t. She goes to class with her friends, but becomes the “odd man out” of the trio because she doesn’t enjoy ballet, although she improves in her dancing with her dad’s gentle coaching. Winnie is also different because she lives with her widowed father, who doesn’t always get the details of ballet wear and sleepovers quite right. The once-a-week ballet class the girls attend actually proceeds far more quickly than a real ballet class for the sake of advancing the plot, but girls who are enrolled in class themselves (or wish they were) will enjoy the authentic details of ballet positions and movements. Several lists and letters in different typefaces are integrated into the story, which works along with the large type size and Geis’s charming line illustrations to create an accessible format for girls just making the transition into longer stories with chapters and more complex plots. (Fiction. 7-9)