Nina, Nina Star Ballerina (Penguin Young Readers, Level 2)

awesome! thank you! My niece who is 5 years old just broke her arm loved this book. KB

This book illustrates how one might get trapped in an untruthful situation. Nina's friends think she is the star of the show when she is only one of several dancers portraying stars. She allows them to think she's the star because she likes the attention. When there is the possibility that one of her friends will attend the performance, Nina has second thought about the deception. She considers getting excused from the show because of a feigned sore leg. Then, confessing to her mother, she gets the good advice to tell her friend the truth. This is accepted and the dance performance goes on with her friend and her mother in the audience. My grand daughter is facing her first dance recital and is very nervous about it. This book fascinated her, I read it to her three times, and hopefully she will now participate in her recital.

My 5 year-old daughter and my 3 year-old son both enjoyed my reading this book to them. My son was glad there was a boy in the dance class and my daughter was empathetic about the story line. We played the recognize-one-word game while reading. The kids learned the word "mom" and were able to see other words by memory, too. I would reccommend this book to first readers also since the words are simple and easy to read.

My almost 3 year old loves anything to do with princesses and ballerinas--hence this book. I've seen better drawings, colors, but it's ok---not all books can be as colorful as RoliePolieOlie books & Little Einsteins. Nice change.