From Publishers Weekly
Mitchard (author of the adult bestseller
The Deep End of the Ocean) turns out a flimsy, often sluggish novel about a mouse who is born in a piano, backstage at New York's Ballet Jolie, and who opens her eyes just as a prima ballerina performs onstage. "Prima!... That is who I am. I will be the principal dancer of the Ballet Rodente," announces the mouse. She successfully debuts in the title role in "Whiskerella," performed on an overturned milk crate, yet Prima aspires to dance for human as well as mouse audiences. After her parents punish her for making a surprise appearance in a human ballet performance, the determined dancer's luck changes. She meets Kristen, nine-year-old daughter of the ballerina after whom Prima named herself (they have no trouble talking, Mitchard explains, "as all children can understand most animal languages"). Prima moves into Kristen's posh apartment, where the tiny ballerina happily performs on the stage of a puppet theater. A trip to Paris brings love for Prima, and Kristen returns to America without her. The unabashedly sentimental ending takes Kristen back to Paris to learn that Prima has gone "to the stars," yet she shepherds the mouse's daughter, another aspiring ballerina, home to New York, to raise her own mouse children in Kristen's piano. Mitchard conveys the bond between Prima and her human pal, but inane word play, coy exposition and protracted dialogue will likely turn off even balletomanes. Ages 8-up.
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From School Library Journal
Grade 3-5–A popular adult author has joined the ever-growing number of writers trying to cross over into the children's market. Disappointingly, this effort is not successful. Prima is determined to become the lead dancer in the mouse ballet and skyrocket to stardom instead of taking her time and learning the ropes. Her first sentence uttered is "I am born to dance." She even calls herself Antoinette Brown, after the great prima ballerina. Along the way she is befriended by the dancer's daughter, a stereotypical child of a celebrity who is showered with material gifts but craves her mother's attention. Instead she finds love and acceptance with Prima. Eventually, they travel to Paris where Prima meets and marries the mouse of her dreams. The book is peppered with cutesy references to famous mice including James Tailer, Squeequido Domingo, and Fred Mousetaire. The book has long, run-on sentences, and all of the threads are neatly tied up in a pat ending. Kate DiCamillo's
The Tale of Despereaux (Candlewick, 2003) and Dick King-Smith's
The Three Terrible Trins (Knopf, 1997) are much better choices.
–Linda Zeilstra Sawyer, Skokie Public Library, IL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
