Ballet Shoes For Anna is a tremendously beautiful story for children as well as adults. It is a story of three children who had the misfortune of losing their family and home in an earthquake in Turkey. The children are Francesco, 10, Gussie, 9, and Anna, 8. They led an almost extraordinary life for their parents, Christopher and Olga, lived in a caravan and they traveled frequently.
Their maternal grandfather, whom they affectionately called Jardek, thinks that Anna would make a great ballet dancer one day. He was an amazing dancing teacher himself so he gave Anna ballet lessons to train her.
Fortunately, after the earthquake, Sir William Hoogle, who wanted to offer help to the victims of the disaster, met the children and looked after them until he found a legal guardian for them. Finally, the children were sent to live with their unsociable uncle, Cecil Docksay, and his timid wife, Mabel. The uncle also refused to send Anna for ballet lessons.
Therefore, Francesco and Gussie diligently tried hard to find money so that Anna could be trained to be a dancer. I think that her brothers are very caring and thoughtful because they kept insisting to everybody that Anna must have ballet lessons. But, Anna can be quite silly, as she does not seem to realize the trouble and worries she’d caused to her brothers while they tried to earn money. She is just adamant to get the best teacher and also one she can learn with.
The cover of the book that I have now is not that attractive. To young readers, in my opinion. It was published by Collins. The colours are dull and it only shows Anna with her pink ballet shoes in the background. If the cover had brighter colours, there’s no doubt I would have taken an instant liking to it even if I haven’t read the book yet. That is why you ought to take care never to ever let the book cover fool you! Read the book first, and then only judge.
It is a simple story but a very meaningful one. You get a pleasant feeling while reading it. When Gussie managed to land himself in a tight spot, you’d be eager to find out if all goes well or not. This book had been sitting in my bookshelf for quite a long time and I regretted not reading it sooner. Well, better late than never!
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this looks like an amazing book….a very inspirational story
Erica: It sure is! I really enjoyed reading it. Thanks for dropping by.