Learn how to thrive in intense, competitive environments with these secrets from one of America's premiere ballerinas--and get a sneak peek at what her life is really like. Ballet may look glamorous and effortless to audience members, but it requires grueling discipline. It's a competitive and physically and mentally demanding career that combines elite athleticism, artistry, and performance. Not only do dancers rehearse for six to eight hours a day before performing at night, but they also must make it all look easy! As a principal ballerina with New York City Ballet and a one-time Broadway star--not to mention a mother of three and an MBA student--Megan Fairchild is all too familiar with these challenges. In The Ballerina Mindset, she shares all the wisdom she's learned from her nearly two-decade career, drawing upon her own experiences to show us how she learned to overcome challenges ranging from stage fright to negative feedback to a packed calendar to weight management--and how we can do the same. Inspiring, warm, and revelatory, The Ballerina Mindset is the perfect how-to guide for dancers, athletes, artists, and anyone struggling to stay sane in a high-pressure environment.

Ballet-inspired fitness for every woman! You don't have to be a professional ballerina to look like one! With Mary Helen Bowers' Ballet Beautiful, forget beating yourself up in the gym and suffering through starvation diets for some unattainable goal. You can achieve your ideal body and develop the strength, grace, and elegance of a dancer by following Mary Helen's proven program-one that's got everyone from celebrities to busy moms to executives raving!Ballet Beautiful is a fitness method that blends the artistry and athleticism of ballet with an easy, accessible eating plan that works for every body - and absolutely no dance experience is required. Created by professional ballerina Mary Helen Bowers, this transformative approach to fitness and health will reshape your body and your mind!Ballet Beautiful's three-fold approach is not an extreme workout nor is it a radical diet for an overnight fix; it's a roadmap to achieving and maintaining your ideal health, shape and size-all with the elegance and strength of a ballerina. Part One of the book introduces the program's empowering mindset, the key to supporting and guiding you through lasting change. Part Two, the Ballet Beautiful Method, consists of challenging, effective, and fun workouts that sculpt and tone sleek ballet muscles and build beautiful posture. Whether you have a full hour or only 15 minutes, you can tailor the program to your own schedule and needs. Part Three shares the Ballet Beautiful Lifestyle, a healthy, balanced approach to nutrition. With meal plans, shopping tips and quick but delicious daily recipes that will satisfy and nourish your entire body, it's a stress-free, diet-free plan that will help keep you feeling as strong and healthy as you look.

Finalist, the Arts Club of Washington Marfield Prize A look inside a dancer’s world Inspiring, revealing, and deeply relatable, Being a Ballerina is a firsthand look at the realities of life as a professional ballet dancer. Through episodes from her own career, Gavin Larsen describes the forces that drive a person to study dance; the daily balance that dancers navigate between hardship and joy; and the dancer’s continual quest to discover who they are as a person and as an artist. Starting with her arrival as a young beginner at a class too advanced for her, Larsen tells how the embarrassing mistake ended up helping her learn quickly and advance rapidly. In other stories of her early teachers, training, and auditions, she explains how she gradually came to understand and achieve what she and her body were capable of. Larsen then re-creates scenes from her experiences in dance companies, from unglamorous roles to exhilarating performances. Working as a ballerina was shocking and scary at first, she says, recalling unexpected injuries, leaps of faith, and her constant struggle to operate at the level she wanted—but full of enormously rewarding moments. Larsen also reflects candidly on her difficult decision to retire at age 35. An ideal read for aspiring dancers, Larsen’s memoir will also delight experienced dance professionals and fascinate anyone who wonders what it takes to live a life dedicated to the perfection of the art form.

"The memoir of Michaela DePrince, who lived the first few years of her live in war-torn Sierra Leone until being adopted by an American Family. Now seventeen, she is one of the premiere ballerinas in the United States"--

The celebrated ballerina and role model, Misty Copeland, shares the secrets of how to reshape your body and achieve a lean, strong physique and glowing health. Misty Copeland believes "There has been a shift in recent years in which women no longer desire the bare bones of a runway model. Standards have changed: what women do want is a long, toned, powerful body with excellent posture." In other words, the body of a ballerina. In her first health and fitness book, Misty will show women how to find the motivation to get healthier and stronger, and how to reshape their bodies to be lean and flexible, with step-by-step advice, meal plans, workout routines, and words of inspiration. Celebrating the importance of healthy fats and a fitness regimen based on ballet exercises, Misty shares her own time-tested exercises and an eating plan focusing on healthy fats, both of which keep her in top shape. Tips for motivation and words of encouragement as well as tips on how to keep going even when you may want to give up. An inspiring section on the importance of finding mentors, and eventually being one, plus excerpts from Misty's personal journal, round out this important book on grace and strength.

Ada hates everything about ballet class, yet she still has to go! Arabesques? Grotesque! And then one Saturday, Ada pliés right out the door and into the hallway, smacking into someone who thinks her ungraceful moves are great! In the tradition of Kevin Henkes’s Lilly books and Russell and Lillian Hoban’s Frances classics, Ada is a plucky little kid with her own way of thinking. Through Ada’s stubbornness and emotional honesty, author/illustrator Elise Gravel shows her understanding of how kids feel and why. She shows us that anger is normal and feeling our emotions leads to growth! This short, funny, energetic book—full of word bubbles that enhance visual literacy and Gravel’s signature vibrant illustrations—is a great choice for both reading aloud and reading independently for emergent readers. Children who love ballet—and definitely those who don’t—will delight in this clever, subversive tale about a kid who has to do what she doesn’t like in order to discover what she loves.

A reckoning with one of our most beloved art forms, whose past and present are shaped by gender, racial, and class inequities—and a look inside the fight for its future Every day, in dance studios all across America, legions of little children line up at the barre to take ballet class. This time in the studio shapes their lives, instilling lessons about gender, power, bodies, and their place in the world both in and outside of dance. In Turning Pointe, journalist Chloe Angyal captures the intense love for ballet that so many dancers feel, while also grappling with its devastating shortcomings: the power imbalance of an art form performed mostly by women, but dominated by men; the impossible standards of beauty and thinness; and the racism that keeps so many people of color out of ballet. As the rigid traditions of ballet grow increasingly out of step with the modern world, a new generation of dancers is confronting these issues head on, in the studio and on stage. For ballet to survive the twenty-first century and forge a path into a more socially just future, this reckoning is essential.

Instant New York Times bestselling series opener inspired by prima ballerina and author Misty Copeland's own early experiences in ballet. From prima ballerina and New York Times bestselling author Misty Copeland comes the story of a young Misty, who discovers her love of dance through the ballet Coppélia--a story about a toymaker who devises a villainous plan to bring a doll to life. Misty is so captivated by the tale and its heroine, Swanilda, she decides to audition for the role. But she's never danced ballet before; in fact, this is the very first day of her very first dance class! Though Misty is excited, she's also nervous. But as she learns from her fellow bunheads, she makes wonderful friends who encourage her to do her very best. Misty's nerves quickly fall away, and with a little teamwork, the bunheads put on a show to remember. Featuring the stunning artwork of newcomer Setor Fiadzigbey, Bunheads is an inspiring tale for anyone looking for the courage to try something new.

"Don't expect just tulle and toe shoes. In this fascinating insider's tale, NYCB dancer Pazcoguin reveals her world. . . . A striking debut." —People Award-winning New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin, aka the Rogue Ballerina, gives readers a backstage tour of the real world of elite ballet—the gritty, hilarious, sometimes shocking truth you don’t see from the orchestra circle. In this love letter to the art of dance and the sport that has been her livelihood, NYCB’s first Asian American female soloist Georgina Pazcoguin lays bare her unfiltered story of leaving small-town Pennsylvania for New York City and training amid the unique demands of being a hybrid professional athlete/artist, all before finishing high school. She pitches us into the fascinating, whirling shoes of dancers in one of the most revered ballet companies in the world with an unapologetic sense of humor about the cutthroat, survival-of-the-fittest mentality at NYCB. Some swan dives are literal: even in the ballet, there are plenty of face-plants, backstage fights, late-night parties, and raucous company bonding sessions. Rocked by scandal in the wake of the #MeToo movement, NYCB sits at an inflection point, inching toward progress in a strictly traditional culture, and Pazcoguin doesn’t shy away from ballet’s dark side. She continues to be one of the few dancers openly speaking up against the sexual harassment, mental abuse, and racism that in the past went unrecognized or was tacitly accepted as par for the course—all of which she has painfully experienced firsthand. Tying together Pazcoguin’s fight for equality in the ballet with her infectious and deeply moving passion for her craft, Swan Dive is a page-turning, one-of-a-kind account that guarantees you'll never view a ballerina or a ballet the same way again.

Harper had a plan. It went south. Hand this utterly unique contemporary YA to anyone who loves ballet or is a little too wrapped up in their Plan A. (It's okay to fail, people!) Harper Scott is a dancer. She and her best friend, Kate, have one goal: becoming professional ballerinas. And Harper won’t let anything—or anyone—get in the way of The Plan, not even the boy she and Kate are both drawn to. Harper is a Scott. She’s related to Robert Falcon Scott, the explorer who died racing Amundsen and Shackleton to the South Pole. Amundsen won because he had a plan, and Harper has always followed his model. So when Harper’s life takes an unexpected turn, she finagles (read: lies) her way to the icy dark of McMurdo Station . . . in Antarctica. Extreme, but somehow fitting—apparently she has always been in the dark, dancing on ice this whole time. And no one warned her. Not her family, not her best friend, not even the boy who has somehow found a way into her heart. It will take a visit from Shackleton's ghost--the explorer who didn't make it to the South Pole, but who got all of his men out alive--to teach Harper that success isn't always what's important, sometimes it's more important to learn how to fail successfully. A Kids' Indie Next List Selection "Longo makes Harper a standout character of fire, commitment, and sass." —The Bulletin, Starred Review "A stunning love letter to ballet and San Francisco, Jennifer Longo's (Six Feet Over It) quirky sophomore novel, Up to This Pointe, is the perfect meld of adorable and heart-wrenching." —Shelf Awareness, Starred Review "One of the most breathtaking explorations of navigating heartbreak that I've ever read. This is one for the ages." —Martha Brockenbrough, author of The Game of Love and Death "Longo's book brings the reader intimately into Harper's heartbreak and healing in a way that will speak to readers of all ages." —Anna Eklund, University Book Store, Seattle, WA "Incisively written. Longo makes it easy to commiserate with Harper as she tries to move past disappointment and envision a new path forward." —Publishers Weekly "A moving love letter to dance, dreams, and San Francisco." —Kirkus Reviews "Harper is a well-developed, relatable character. Her inner monologue is witty and dominates most of the novel, giving a unique perspective. . . . A recommended read for determined teens with an interest in following and exploring their dreams." —School Library Journal "Harper’s temporary Antarctic life is evoked with as much vivid, fascinating detail as her 'second home,' the ballet studio. . . . An affecting, memorable examination of disappointment and loss." —The Horn Book Review "Longo's fabulous depiction of McMurdo and the winter residents captures the beauty, humor, and danger of such an isolated existence. An adventure story with lots of heart." —Booklist