On Pointe

by Lorie Ann Grover

Book Overview

Our feet slip into satin shoes with stiff shanks, hard boxing, tight elastic, and slippery ribbons that wrap and end in hard knots. The frayed edges are crammed out of sight. We stand. A row of bound feet rises to its toes. For as long as she can remember, Clare and her family have had a dream: Someday Clare will be a dancer in City Ballet Company. For ten long years Clare has been taking ballet lessons, watching what she eats, giving up friends and...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689865252
• ISBN13: 9780689865251
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Length: 315 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.7"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

On Pointe

i loved this book It is such easy reading it doesn't even feel like you are reading poems.

On Pointe

Clare has a dream: to dance professionally. In the summer before her senior year in high school, she moves to her grandfather's home to train more seriously and try for the City Ballet: There are only sixteen positions in City Ballet. Sixteen positions make the company. How many in my class? How many in the conservatory? How many in western Washington dream like me to be one in sixteen? Clare trains hard and loves to dance. (I especially appreciate Lorie Ann Grover's descriptions of the pain and the beauty of dancing on pointe.) But Clare has a problem--one that escalates while living at her grandfather's--she's becoming too tall. And there's not much she can do about that. Clare's not alone in her struggles. Her "best friend" in Madame's serious class is Rosella and Rosella has been throwing up to maintain her weight. Dia has grown too big and needs "a big bra" and her hips "are huge." But with the stakes as high as they are no one does much talking. When Dia is called in for "the talk" with Madame, for example, Dia disappears without a word. And no one mentions her absence. Add to Clare's stress her mother's constant mention of "our dream" when they talk on the phone. (Note to moms: don't do this!) Oh, and grandfather--a wonderful, kind, prune juice drinking man six days of the week--becomes a little passive aggressive on the whole Sunday church-going issue. In writing "On Pointe" as a novel in verse, Grover has chosen wisely from an aesthetic point of view. Clare's personality--straightforward, hardworking, serious--comes through in Grover's spare free verse. "On Pointe" is for anyone who has ever thought, "Even though I'm trying hard,/failure/could be/my future." "On Pointe" is highly recommended for children as young as ten and as old as eighteen. I'd also recommend this book to the moms of the world (even the most well-meaning of us can make some big mistakes).

Wonderful.

The prose-ish style this book is written in works amazingly well: Grover finds a way to say so much in so few words. While the family crisis that occurs later in the book is a little too convenient,I didn't find that it took away from the book as a whole. As a dancer I think I appreciated this book more than the average reader. However, you definetely don't have to be a dancer to enjoy this book. The characters' problems were a tad cliche (overbearing mother, anorexia, body issues, etc.), but Grover was able to find a happy medium and so all the characters feel very real. Overall, a unique, short read.

EXCELLENT

I bought this book for my daughter and after skimming through it I sat down and read it myself. Although the book is somewhat about ballet - anyone who has ever had a dream, a family, and some rough times growing up will relate. What I loved most is the author writes with such clarity from each character's perspective. She voices opinions that real teenagers have as well as letting you know how the adult characters feel. Worth every penny.

Her Brevity is Brilliant

In her second novel, ON POINTE, Lorie Ann Grover appears to follow the philosophy that less is more; and quite brilliantly. The brevity of her prose punctuates each idea that she very carefully sculpts for her reader. While wordiness may appeal to some, Grover is skilled at painting sketches in vivid, powerful colors getting right to the heart of the matter.Her books are in the young novel category, but her publishers might find it interesting that many of her readers are grown women. Grover writes about hard hitting issues that many contemporary women have grown up with. Her characters are young women on the threshold of adulthood, but their thoughts are reminiscent of the tape that has played through every grown woman's mind at various points in time with themes that our society pounds into the female psyche.As an avid reader of non-fiction, Grover's works are the first fiction I've read in years -- again quite by accident as my daughter encouraged me to read both ON POINTE and LOOSE THREADS.In turn, I encourage other women to read her work.In loose terms, Grover could be a modern day Emily Dickinson. The only recommendation is that Simon & Schuster change marketing plans to reach Grover's widest potential audience.