The Girl who wanted to dance

Kiera has been reading quite well for a few months now, which is a good thing since we don't always have to read the Rainbow Fairy series of books to her.

Today she read "The Girl Who Wanted to Dance" by Amy Ehrlich, which she chose from the library the other day. It is about a little girl named Clara who loves to dance. She lives with her father and grandmother. But when the grandmother dies, Clara is left alone with her silent father. A traveling dance troupe comes to her village and captivates her with their music and dancing. Clara follows the performers to their wooded camp where she meets with a beautiful dancer who, she later finds out is her mother. In the end, her mother continues travelling with the dance troupe but promises to return when she is older and Clara stays with her father, who asks her to dance for him while he plays the piano. After we finished reading it, Kiera started bawling (the first time she has ever shown that kind of emotion in a book or a movie). She asked me if we could go to the library to borrow the 'next book' where Clara's mother comes back so that Clara can join her in the dance troupe. I had to make up a story about it so that she would stop crying.

Not sure if I would recommend the book since I think it has an odd message to it, but it is good if you want to make your kid cry and hopefully appreciate you more (ha ha).