Customer Reviews

DK Read & Listen: Illustrated Book of Ballet Stories

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a perfect introduction for the young, serious balletstudent to THE classic ballets: The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Coppelia, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. It tells the story(s) AS DANCED, an important difference for a student of dance. Ms. Bussell's personal comments and pictures ignite a young dancer's dreams of a professional career. My daughter just turned ten and the detail was appropriate for her reading and interest level. Although the read-along-feature makes it look like it's for younger readers, I think ten is the youngest age I'd recommend unless you have an EXCEPTIONAL reader who also LOVES ballet. This review is based on the book. I haven't had a chance to listen to the audio yet; it's available on cassette or CD. Amazon's price was the best...

I bought this for my 5yr old daughter who is taking ballet lessons. It is a charming informative book with wonderful photos and drawings. I think children older than 4-8(amazon's recommendation) would also enjoy this item.

This is a lovely little book with great pictures which has really helped my daughter learn moves and draw them. The stories are well written and it's great that a currently popular ballet dancer helped with it, not one retiring and probably never heard from again. I reccomend this book for people who like ballet and the stories, it a great book to read to children!

I bought this book as a gift for a ballet class friend of my daughter, who is 4 1/2. I've since bought many more for additional birthday parties! The girls love hearing the stories, and it is a wonderful preparation for going to the ballet - they love knowing the story and what to look for on the stage. The moms tell me that their daughters love to listen to the CD as they are going to sleep. My daughter loves to listen to it in the car while she's looking at the book. We really love DK books. They are captivating, interesting, full of facts, and beautifully illustrated.

this book is a good simple narrated collection of short stories of ballet plays.
Excellent for young dancers, who want to know a short understandable version of the ballet pieces.

This book was everything that we wanted it to be! My daughter is almost 6 and loves it. I bought it because she is interested in ballet and loves to dance, but we knew little about the stories of the famous ballets. This book was perfect for teaching her about five of the most famous ballets. I highly recommend this book & CD to others.

I bought the book to share with my younger ballet students. My 5-6 year olds loved sitting down for a short story time during ballet class. The story of The Nutcracker was divided into four logical sections, so for their last four classes before winter break I read one section each class.

The first time I introduced a little background of the ballet before reading. Each subsequent day we reviewed the characters, action and setting from the week prior before reading the next section. After reading about the Land of Sweets and the Sugar Plum Fairy (the last two sections) I had my students try to dance like their favorite candies of today, then we danced to the actual Sugar Plum Fairy music.

I was able to incorporate the story into my class easily, because it was divided so well already. One part of the story was on each two page spread, and my students loved looking at the illustrations and the photographs of actual dancers in costume.

I have listened to the CD component, but it only seems to have one track for each story, so it would have been difficult to use in my lesson plan. It does have the music for each section of the ballet in the background as Ms. Bussell is reading. The CD would be an excellent accompaniment for reading the book with a child at home, or listening to at home or in the car.

I will probably use the same format to share another of the five total ballet stories in the book with my students, and I will definitely repeat the Nutcracker lesson plan next Fall.