These themes will vary! It could be based off of some book mail I just received, pop culture, something personal to me, a headline from the news, a trend I noticed when I was buying books for my library system, etc. I hope you stick around to see all the themes and book recs I come up with!
Today’s Theme: Dance Your Heart Out!
I chose this theme after reading this graphic novel, a non-fiction book about dance, checking the release date on Jasmine Guillory’s new book, and then seeing the pair to this TfT in a webinar. For today’s TfT I wanted to focus on dance books that feature main characters facing these huge obstacles all while they’re still facing obstacles on the dance floor. In this one, there’s a toxic relationship with someone that’s going back and forth with someone, there’s hints of a student/teacher relationship, a bad relationship with a parent, and so much more. And through all of this they’re still trying to complete classes and be the best they can. This graphic novel shows the incredible strength these girls had to continue on and keep going. The art is wonderful too. My favorite was the last two pages.
In this picture book, the main character is in ballet and is constantly hearing about a term “Ballet Pink.” It’s known to give a “uniform appearance” to everyone on stage since they match “most skin tones.” But Bellen wonders about the other colors of ballet, like the brown that she knows. She comes up with a way to introduce the ““many beautiful colors of dance” to everyone else. I’m so excited to see how she stood up for what she believed in, much like she did when she started her More Than Peach Initiative. (Also can we talk about this cover? The mirror image in brown? I LOVE IT.) It’s not out until May, so I’ll be bidding my time until we get there.
Well, there you go! Here I’m just going to talk about why I grouped these two books together. I hope you enjoyed a look at this small part of the books. For a full synopsis of the book or to add it to your TBR, click the picture and it will take you to their Storygraph. The link on the caption will take you to it’s Goodreads.
Have you read this graphic novel? Will you do so now? What do you think about this picture book? Will you try it when it comes out? Let me know in the comments!