Excellent information for the person just starting to study ballet. Be it child or grown up, this book is filled with facts from ballet technique to history, and even includes a dictionary of ballet terms. A must for any child starting ballet.....although one must realize that the ballet studio described in the book is not what one will ALWAYS find... studios' set up and rules do vary... Especially informative is the section about famous ballet dancers and choreographers, as well as the sketches showing how to do the basic positions and steps. You will not be dissatisfied with this one.

I went to the library and tried every book they have on the topic... we keep renewing this one, so now I'm going to buy it. This is like all the other books combined... it has everything!

The diagrams of steps and positions, in adition to the basic first five, are extensive and well-organized into chapters on Exercises at the Barre, Centre Work, Jumps and Travelling Steps... rounding off with A Simple Dance (combining various steps, etc.), and ending with a short (1-page) discussion of steps for two people (no diagrams here, just a few illustrations of people in costume).

My daughter is barely 3 and loves it... first thing in the morning we do some of the excersizes together and practice some of the basic positions. Before nap time, we read the story of how ballet began, look at the pictures of the costumes and the pictures of clothes people wear to a ballet class, talk about which ones she wants to wear someday when she is old enough to take a ballet class, and how you make up your own ballet. (She has made up her own silly ones, too.) And before bed at night, we read (and re-read ad infinitum!) the Stories of Ballets (though you do have to ad-lib to soften them a bit for kids this young, because most of them end in tragedy) and of Famous Dancers.

Our day does not revolve around ballet so much as it does around books and playing... but for over 2 months now, this book has not been out of the lineup one single afternoon or night.

And I'll never give up our morning exercise routine, so this book's big collection of diagrammed positions is something we will be able to grow into over time.

My daughter isn't interested in the sections on The Structure of a Ballet Company, Ballet As A Career, or Life At A Ballet School, but I thought they were great, and I can see how they can put some reality into the fantasies of parents or pre-teens.

On top of all that, there's a glossary at the end and a full index... it's just a very well-written book, appropriate for ALL ages.