Dancing

BRONTORINA, written by James Howe and illustrated by Rand Cecil is reviewed by Lindy Michaels, a woman with a dream.

Brontorina had a dream. She wanted to dance! And so she enrolled in Madame Lucille’s Dance Academy For Girls and Boys. There was just one teeny, tiny problem. Brontorina was… wait for it… a huge dinosaur! When Madame Lucille pointed this fact out to her, she replied, dreamily, “True, but in my heart I am a ballerina.”

The children in the dance academy didn’t seem to care about Brontorina’s dream, at all, chiding her with taunts of, “She is too big!” And “She does not have the right shoes!” Although Madame Lucille had to agree with them, never one to crush another’s dreams, she accepted the dinosaur into her ballet class, but with the warning, “Please try not to squash the other dancers.”

Well! Amazingly, Brontorina proved to be quite the “little” twinkle toes, graceful and agile, although she did crash her head through the dance studio’s ceiling while doing relevés and jetés:  And no boy could possibly lift the humongous beast over his head, as is often the necessity in the craft of ballet dancing.

With a tear in her eye, just when Brontorina’s dream was about to fade away, a solution was found that not only allowed the dinosaur to continue her pliés and arabesques, but also encouraged others of largeness, like cows and hippos and other dinosaur friends to have the opportunity to ‘point’ and ‘twirl,’ also.

And just think, it all began with a dream. So children of all ages, listen closely and never, ever give up on your dreams, even if you bang your head on the ceiling trying to fulfill those dreams.

The very versatile Lindy Michaels aims to inspire young minds through children’s literature. Lindy owned L.A.’s first children’s bookshop, OF BOOKS AND SUCH (1972-1987) where she did storytelling, taught drama to children, had art and poetry contests and the like. According to Lindy, “It was truly a ‘land of enchantment.” She also spent years lecturing on realism in children’s literature at colleges in the state. For close to five years Lindy has worked in  Studio City for Barnes and Noble (BookStar) in the children’s section and does storytelling every Saturday at 10:30 a.m.