The Tiny Dancer is a book written by Siena Cherson Siegel and illustrated by Mark Siegel, that follows the journey of a young girl named, Sienita, on her pathway and dream of becoming a professional ballerina at the New York City Ballet Company located in New York City.

The book starts with Sienita as a young dancer, as a dancer at a small local studio near her in San Juan, after traveling to New York with her mother and doing an audition for the School of American Ballet School, she gets accepted and moves there. We then follow the pathway of Sienita at SAB and other ballet schools, through her many challenges and obstacles, from losing her boyfriend, her parents divorcing, and forced to reduce her ballet training when she experiences an injury, completely ruins her and dis motivates her as a person. Therefore, she must find a way to motivate herself back up again and continue working her dream and passion as a ballerina.

I really enjoyed reading this book, the illustrations and drawings were appealingly drawn showing life and motion. This book really shows and explains the difficulties associated with a passion that you are in. However, one negative aspect to this book that I did not enjoy much was how Sienita gave up on her dream of becoming a professional, she should have motivated herself even more and risen up to the challenge to work even harder to come back to her level, instead of letting herself get lowered down by how talented others are and by her injury.

If you are looking for another book similar to this one, To Dance, is also available in full color format with a similar story in a shorter, manageable text. This was the first book that I read from this author, after reading this book you cannot imagine the excitement I had to see a 2nd book written by the same author in a longer version!

If you are interested in reading this book, Tiny Dancer, by Siena Cherson Siegal is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library today! I would totally recommend this book for people who are interested or currently are in the dance industry, or for anyone just looking for a motivating, beautifully illustrated and drawn book.