Belinda Begins Ballet: Don't let obstacles get in your way

Title: Belinda Begins Ballet
Author: Amy Young
Illustrator: Amy Young
Age Range: 3-8
Genre: Picture book

When I was growing up, my parents decided at some point that my duck walk would no longer do and decided ballet lesson would be the thing to cure my walk.  (Little did they understand that my duck walk feet also worked very well in ballet.)  When they told me I was going to do ballet, I pouted, cried and screamed because I didn't want to dance.  I was worried about the clothes, what I would look like and what I would be doing in the class that could potentially humiliate or embarrass my already then fragile ego.  (I was a bit of a sensitive child.)

However, I ended up loving ballet enough to take it for about five years.  I loved the dancing, the discipline, the French words, and the whole movement and grace of the dance form.  When dancing, I felt so different and out of my body and a part of the music in a way that I've never experienced since then.  I love ballet.

In the book, Belinda Begins Ballet, Belinda also loves ballet, only she isn't aware of it initially.  She starts life having these rather enormous feet, and they are her most distinguishing characteristic.  As she grows up and goes to school, a teacher notices these feet and decides that Belinda is the perfect person to play the clown for the school talent show; Belinda will be clumsy, uncoordinated, and fall and crash into things as only a clown should.  Only, Belinda does not like the role, and is entranced one day, when she inadvertently catches one of the students dancing a ballet solo for the talent show.  From that day on, Belinda watches and then goes home and practices ballet movements.

In the end, when it is her turn to dance onstage, Belinda chooses to dance gracefully and beautifully, and not like a clown at all. She is true to herself and what she wants to do.  She does not let her big feet stop her from being the dancer she wants to be.

I love Belinda because she tries hard to overcome the obstacles that are in front of her, and in the end her hard work pays off.  My daughters have both loved the book for it is funny as well as having a powerful message.

The first book in the series


The next in the series...also really super cute


A funny one where Belinda is supposed to dance in Paris, but her shoes are lost so she has to figure out how to make them...to the rescue - Baguettes!


The last in the series...there is a bit of a catty girl in this one, so I'm less keen on this than the others, but still a good read