Presenting Tanya the Ugly Duckling

When Tanya's ballet teacher, Miss Foley, chooses her to dance the lead in the spring recital of The Ugly Duckling, Tanya wonders, Why? I am only Tanya.

Right from the start, rehearsing is hard. So much to learn! Tanya feels clumsy. She just can't get the dance right. "Poor Tanya," she hears someone whisper, "she really is an ugly duckling."

Finally, with the opening performance only days away, Miss Foley takes Tanya aside. "Be the little duckling," she says. "Feel the children's voices teasing, the leaves falling, the ice freezing around you. Then, in the spring, look into the pond: what do you see?"

With Satomi Ichikawa's shimmering pastel watercolors, Patricia Lee Gauch's newest story of the littlest dancer is a multilayered testament to the swan waiting to emerge within every young person.

32 pages; recommended for ages 6-8.