Ballet dancer Misty Copeland (Life in Motion) makes her children's book debut with this inspiring love letter to young people, containing breathtaking illustrations of airborne dancers by Caldecott Honor artist Christopher Myers (H.O.R.S.E.).
An aspiring young ballet dancer in yellow leotards marks "the space between you and me," as she watches an adult dancer in white tutu, leaping New York's East River in Myers's collage. Author and artist portray the girl's interior life: "me? I'm gray as rain/.../ I could never hope to leap/ the space between," she thinks, sitting on a curb, oblivious to the bright colors behind her. Even while stationary, the adult dancer suggests grace and movement. "Darling child," she says, "don't you know you're just where I started," describing her own beginnings, "before the fireworks of costume." Myers pictures the ballerina as the Firebird (Copeland's most famous role) gazing at her younger self in a mirror; icicle-like collage partitions foreshadow what's to come--electrified lights in gold, and the blue nighttime skyline at performance time. She speaks of hard work ("a thousand leaps and falls") with images of elastic, elegant moves. As she coaches ("each position one through five/ stair steps to the sky?"), her student demonstrates her moves, the blue collage background recalling that of the Firebird gazing at her younger self.
Words and pictures spotlight the journey from novice to professional, and the final image of the duo's pas de deux in matching white tutus closes the space between them. Brava! --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness