Ballet Shoes for Anna
Having lost their parents in an earthquake, Anna and her siblings live with their prim uncle and feeble aunt. Anna lives only to dance – but her uncle forbids her to have anything to do with ballet. How will she survive?
For Anna, everything takes second place to her burning desire to dance. Even the earthquake that destroyed her Turkish home has not made her think differently, only now she's stuck in a prim suburban household with an uncle who "doesn't approve" of dancing.
What can Anna do? Not only is there no one to give her lessons, but there's no money for them either, and, anyway, dancing's forbidden. Will she ever become the ballerina she longs to be?
Noel Streatfeild, the plain middle child between two talented and pretty sisters, trained at RADA and acted for nine years before writing Ballet Shoes, an instant bestseller, in 1936. As vicarage daughter, factory girl, actress, model, social worker, writer, and crusader for good books, Noel touched many aspects of life. Her experiences enriched her stories, which were so popular that, by her eightieth birthday, she had earned herself the title of ‘a national monument’. She died in 1986.