Catty Jane Who Loved to Dance

Catty Jane Who Loved to Dance
by Valeri Gorbachev
32 pages; ages 3-8
Boyds Mills Press, 2013

Catty Jane jetes through her day. She pirouettes into bed. Catty Jane, who takes classes at Mrs. Herron's Dance Academy, wants to be a ballerina. so when Mrs. Herron says "practice", that's what Catty Jane does. Even when Froggy wants to play soccer.

Froggy has a dance too, and he shows Catty Jane. But Catty doesn't think it's a very good dance; it's got vaulting and leaping and somersaulting in it. "Your dance doesn't look like ballet at all," she says.

"I'm not your friend anymore!" yells Froggy... and the two friends former friends plop down on opposite sides of a bench - which is where Piggy and Goose find them. When Piggy and Goose suggest a dance party, Catty Jane is too busy. She has to practice. But she's lonely, and feels bad about being mean to Froggy. But in the end, Catty Jane figures out how to follow her passion for dancing and nurture her friendships.

Review copy provided by the publisher.