This is a fas­ci­nat­ing read about the dancer who would some­day be known as Ali­cia Marko­va. Lily Marks loves to stand on her tip­toes, but her legs are weak and crooked. Could danc­ing lessons help strength­en them? To every­one’s sur­prise, Lily proves to have a nat­ur­al tal­ent for danc­ing, and becomes utter­ly devot­ed to prac­tic­ing. The high point of her child­hood is see­ing inter­na­tion­al bal­let star Anna Pavlo­va per­form, and receiv­ing an invi­ta­tion to dance for her. Now there’s no turn­ing back; Lily com­mits ful­ly to becom­ing a ballerina.

An end­note tells read­ers that Pavlo­va had a Jew­ish par­ent, though she nev­er pub­licly acknowl­edged her her­itage; Lily’s par­ents were also Jewish.

High­ly styl­ized illus­tra­tions com­ple­ment the sto­ry beau­ti­ful­ly. Note that the Jew­ish con­tent is restrict­ed to the note at the back of the book.