Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 3-5. This unusual book features the words of Anna Pavlova paired with paintings by Edgar Degas. Pavlova relates how her childhood experience of attending a ballet inspired her love of dance and her ambition to become a ballerina. Though the paintings are not illustrations of the text, they accompany it quite amiably, particularly in the many ballet scenes. It seems doubtful that Degas would have approved the bright, cotton-candy pink of the endpapers and jacket flaps, but the cream-colored pages, elegant design, and well-reproduced paintings within are quite beautiful. Young ballet lovers will be charmed with both Pavlova's brief, vivid memoir and Degas' paintings. --Carolyn Phelan
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The magic of royalty and ballet combine against an Edgar Degas backdrop for Anna Pavlova's I Dreamed I Was a Ballerina. Using simple language, the Russian dancer vividly describes the pleasure, awe and inspiration drawn from Sleeping Beauty, her first glimpse of the ballet. ( Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-The story of the famous early-20th-century ballerina, drawn from Pavlova's memoir, Pages of My Life (Michel de Brunoff, 1922; o.p.). Although very poor, her widowed mother was able to take young Anna to a performance of Sleeping Beauty. It had a profound effect upon the child and her dream from that moment on was to become a ballerina and perform in that same theater-the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg. The language of the text is highly stylized, formal, and spare, albeit appropriate both for the story it tells and for the time in which it was originally told. The few sentences per page are dramatically illustrated by the paintings of Degas, and the selections for this text artfully enhance the words with their beauty. There is a pleasing variety of subjects (including musicians and audiences) and perspectives (dancers up close and from afar, in class, and on stage), and text and illustration are in a balanced counterpoint. A lovely pairing occurs when Pavlova's words about her newly discovered passion for ballet appear next to a pencil sketch of a young girl practicing at the bar. This understated moment is followed by a wordless full-spread presentation of The Dance Class, an exuberant painting of ballerinas, color, movement, and anticipation. The contrast is breathtaking. End notes provide more details about Pavlova's life and about Degas's ballet-inspired art.-Dorian Chong, School of Library and Information Science, San Jose State University, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In a text drawn from her 1922 memoir, Pavlova explains how her life was changed when her mother took her to see the ballet [cf2]Sleeping Beauty.[cf1] Paintings by Edgar Degas accompany the story, though they aren't always appropriate for the text. The total package, elegant to look at but not especially childlike, concludes with facts about Pavlova's life and two black-and-white photos of the dancer. From HORN BOOK Spring 2002, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A lovely conceit, sure to appeal to youngsters who dream of dancing. Using the words of the famous ballerina Anna Pavlova, the text tells the story, in the first person, of her first visit to the theater to see the ballet, a birthday gift from her mother. She was utterly dazzled by seeing Sleeping Beauty danced to the music of Tchaikovsky. "As soon as the orchestra began to play, I became very grave and attentive, eagerly listening, moved for the first time in my life by the call of Beauty." She vowed to dance upon the stage at that very theater, and indeed she did. Pavlova's words are matched to a number of Degas's paintings of dancers, musicians, and figure studies. Author's notes offer background on Pavlova, who died in 1931, and a brief paragraph on Degas, who died in 1917. They most likely never met, though Degas might have seen her perform in Paris. No matter, the spirit that moved them both is apparent in this charming coupling. (picture notes, source notes) (Picture book. 4-10)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
