The Young Person's Guide to the Ballet: With Music from The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty (Book & CD) - Hardcover

Ganeri, Anita

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152011846 ISBN 13: 9780152011840

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 1998

Synopsis

A comprehensive guide teaches young dance enthusiasts about the ballet, including the various dance steps and their significance, the evolution of costumes, and the history of the art form, accompanied by a CD of Tchaikovsky's classic ballets.

About this title

About the Author

Anita Ganeri is an award-winning author of more than 100 children's books. She lives in northern England with her husband, children, dogs, and cat. She enjoys reading, walking the Moors, playing tennis, and dreaming of winning Wimbledon.

Reviews

Grade 3-6-An overview that is simplified to the point of being misleading and inaccurate. Brief sections touch on technique, famous dancers, choreographers, composers, and other topics. Although the black-and-white and full-color photographs are clear, they are sometimes poorly placed or randomly chosen. For example, two kinds of arabesques are described, but the four photos show only the simple arabesque. The introduction promises readers "ballet's history, from the early Romantic period to the Dance Theatre of Harlem's modern productions" but delivers only a quick survey. For example, an unidentified photo of Dance Theatre of Harlem's production of "Giselle" and a line in Arthur Mitchell's brief biography stating that he formed the company do not provide any meaningful information about it. The section on choreographers includes five people, only three of whom are historically important. No one who is still active today is profiled. Two precious pages are given over to "Dance of the World," which includes three sentences about modern dance that are simplistic and irrelevant in the context. An inordinate amount of space is devoted to Tchaikovsky's ballet music, possibly to justify the inclusion of a CD with selections from his work. For information on ballet and its history, try Darcey Bussell's The Young Dancer, (Houghton, 1994), Trudy Garfunkel's On Wings of Joy (Little, Brown, 1994), and Leslie Spatt's Behind the Scenes at the Ballet (Viking, 1995).
Amy Kellman, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Similar in format to Ganeri's Young People's Guide to the Orchestra (1996), this book also comes with a compact disc in its front cover. The CD includes Munich Symphony Orchestra recordings of music from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty. Highlighting many facets of ballet in quick succession, the book touches on topics such as ballet history, technique, famous dancers, choreographers, composers, stories, and world dance. Each two-or four-page section is illustrated with a number of small pictures, including period paintings and engravings as well as many full-color photos of scenes from stage productions. As an introduction to ballet, the book/cassette kit presents an odd combination of shallow breadth and narrow depth; there's a smattering of many subjects in the book and a single composer heard on the recording. Still, most children intrigued by ballet will find something of interest here. For larger collections. Carolyn Phelan

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152011846
• ISBN 13: 9780152011840
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 64