She Kept Dancing
The True Story of a Professional Dancer with a Limb Difference
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
This warm and inviting picture book, cowritten with Catherine Laudone and brightly illustrated by Natelle Quek, takes young readers along on Sydney’s journey—through the joyous ups as well as the crushing downs—and tells the story of how through it all, she kept dancing.
No two dances were the same. Each one was beautiful because it was different—just like how Sydney’s body was also beautiful because it was different.
Sydney Mesher was born with ten toes and five fingers. But it was her toes that her mom noticed first. "I can tell she’s going to be a dancer," she said.
And it turned out Mom was right—after years of hard work, Sydney eventually danced her way onto the famous stage of Radio City Music Hall, becoming the first Rockette with a visible disability.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Written with Laudone, Mesher's personal tale centers persistence in following a dream alongside a message of "celebrating different body types using a language everyone could understand: dance." Mesher was born "with ten toes and five fingers. But it was her toes that Mom noticed first," informing her mother's belief that Mesher would become a dancer. The third-person narrative follows Mesher through childhood years of dance classes to a performing arts high school, and finally to various professional pursuits in New York City where—after several rejections as well as an "intermission" due to a broken foot—she achieves her wish of becoming a Rockette, Radio City's first visibly disabled dancer. The honest, sensitive voice doesn't shy away from representing the cruel words that Mesher endured ("Others called her a monster"), while also capturing the joy of "turning, swaying, and leaping." Depicting characters with a variety of skin tones, Quek's figure-focused cartoon art enlivens the pages with energetic depictions of movement. A personal note from Mesher concludes. Ages 4–8.
