A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina's Dream by Kristy Dempsey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Cooper's palette, settings, clothing are spot-on. It looks like a 1940s-1950s set and cast! Once in the 70s when everyone was all romantic about the 50s I asked my mom what those days looked like, and she said she remembered almost everything was brown. All the pink and candy-apple red in the tv shows and movies was exaggerated, rare color for a very muted time. Cooper does much to set the tone and to emphasize accuracy as an expectation for this historical fiction piece.
The best thing about Dempsey's story was that she displaced the story of Janet Collins into the point of view of a little girl inspired by Collins' 1951 debut at the Met. This slice into an everyday telling of this story captured me. This move sets Kristy Dempsey apart from recent biographers of Josephine Baker ([b:Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker|17043027|Josephine The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker|Patricia Hruby Powell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1365397015s/17043027.jpg|23361239] and Florence Mills ([b:Harlem's Little Blackbird|13531513|Harlem's Little Blackbird|Renée Watson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333578009s/13531513.jpg|19093186]), who went for the rags to riches formula. There was really only one 'moment' in the words that grabbed me, when the Ballet Master noticed the unnamed narrator dancing. Even in historical fiction, I expect the storyteller to show me instead of just telling me. And in a story about hope I wanted Dempsey to build on the one moment and craft something evocative in unfolding the visit to the Met.
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