Forever twirling in the kitchen, pointing their toes without being asked — that is the dancer this shelf is for. Any one of them satisfies this path on its own. Pick by your child's age and by whether they want the pretty, cozy end of ballet or the true stories of real dancers who made it.
You're choosing by the child in front of you. Start at the twirly, cozy end with a dancing mouse and a girl waiting for her tutu if your child is little or new to dance. Reach for the true stories — Anna Pavlova, Michaela DePrince, the leaping Sassy — when they want proof that real dancers were once small and unsure too. And save the fat ballet novel for a child ready to live inside a story for a few hundred pages. Pick one, hand it over, and let the obsession do the rest.