Ballet Bunnies: The New Class

The New Class is part of The Ballet Bunnies series which are delightful stories about …ballet bunnies and human ballet dancers.

Obviously they will appeal to ballet fans but they also feature stories about real life situations for children which will help them identify with the characters and maybe support them in their own dilemmas too.

Millie is very excited to have been given ballet lessons for her birthday. But she does feel very nervous as she approaches Miss Luisa’s school for ballet. When she goes in she feels like everybody who’s ever been new to anything feels and she then feels she gets lots of things wrong. There’s also an unkind member of the ballet class called Amber and she doesn’t help in making Millie feel welcome at all. By the end of the lesson Millie feels like she doesn’t want to go back and is deflated because she loves dancing so much. As she is feeling this way she hears strange voices and discovers some very small long eared ballet dancers all performing.

The chapters then move on with the bunnies supporting Millie to find her feet in ballet and culminate with her making friends and feeling much more part of the class.

It’s a great little chapter book for early readers as it has a really encouraging layout with small elements of text on an illustrated page. The colours are pastel pale and appealing really adding to the story because obviously the bunnies are particularly sweet. There is a whole family of them with different characters and they are introduced in a lovely double page spread.