Lea Lyon

Adorable. Reads like fiction, but don't miss the very informative back matter that puts it in context and gives more details. And it has great pictures in story and in back. Admittedly, without the back matter it is more accessible to younger children, but insufficient to the slightly older ones most likely to be interested.

And yes, there are still bookmobiles. In fact, when I was living in Carson City, NV, the library realized the city was too big for just one central library. But instead of building a branch, they bought a special bicycle to ride around to underserved neighborhoods!… (more)

This story follows a young POC girl who has big dreams of being a ballerina. She shows explores all ways of pursuing ballet by reading books, trying on her mothers ballet shoes, and teaching her friends ballet moves. She shows great amounts of perseverance as runs into difficulty is pursuing dance. The illustrations that go along with this book I love as they follow this young girls love for dance and show diversity with friends and classmates. I really enjoy this book and think it would be a great book to have in my primary classroom library to show themes of perseverance and to follow dreams.… (more)

Growing up in the 1950s, Sylvia Townsend loved every kind of music and every kind of dance. When she saw a performance of Swan Lake on television, she decided that she needed to learn ballet, but her parents couldn't afford lessons. Aided by the librarian staffing the bookmobile which would visit her neighborhood, Sylvia began to teach herself about ballet, eventually going on to show some of her friends the steps. When a teacher stepped in with an offer to pay for lessons, it seemed that Sylvia's dream had come true, until a painful reality intruded: the local ballet schools did not want to take an African-American pupil. Ballet was for white girls. Refusing to give up, Sylvia continued to dance, eventually winning the opportunity to try out with Madame Sawicka, a Russian emigre ballet instructor who agreed to take her on as a pupil. Eventually, Sylvia Townsend would indeed become a ballet dancer, and would open her own dance school in the San Francisco Bay area...

I have read and enjoyed a number of picture-books illustrated by Lea Lyon - Peggy Moss' Say Something, Genevieve Petrillo's Keep Your Ear on the Ball, and others - but Ready to Fly: How Sylvia Townsend Became the Bookmobile Ballerina is her debut as an author, and I was interested in it for that reason. It is one of a number of inspiring picture-book biographies of ballet dancers that I have read in the last few years, and it tells an engrossing tale of a young girl who never gave up on her dream, no matter the challenge. Whether it was poverty, the lack of proper instruction, the racism that kept her out for a time - Sylvia Townsend met every obstacle with determination, working hard and persisting. I appreciated the brief foreword from Townsend herself, in which she communicates the message that children have their own talents, and have the potential in them to make their dreams a reality. I also appreciated the back matter, which gives more information about Townsend and about bookmobiles, which have had such a positive impact on people of all walks of life, all over the country. The accompanying artwork here from illustrator Jessica Gibson is colorful and cute, in a digital, cartoon-style way, but I found myself wishing that another artist had been chosen. There's nothing wrong with the visuals, but I think a different style of art might have been more appealing, in conjunction with the story. Tastes vary of course, so take that as you will. This would pair nicely with a picture-book biography of another ballet dancer - Misty Copeland's Firebird, Maria Tallchief's Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina, Krystyna Poray Goddu's An Unlikely Ballerina - and it would also work very well with other titles about bookmobiles and traveling libraries - Gloria Houston's Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile, Jeanette Winter's Biblioburro: A True Story from Colombia, Margriet Ruurs' My Librarian Is a Camel: How Books Are Brought to Children Around the World. Recommended to young ballet enthusiasts, and to picture-book readers looking for biographies of dancers and/or people overcoming great challenges to succeed.… (more)

Sylvia wants to be a ballerina but financial and cultural circumstances prevent her from realizing her dreams. That is, until one day when she gets the idea to check out books from the book mobile and teach herself “how to fly”.
This book is recommended as a read aloud both in preschool storytimes and K-2 outreach. The multicultural story presents both the dreams and struggles of a young ballerina. Children will enjoy the story and the beautiful color illustrations. The content inspires talk about inequality in a very basic form.… (more)