Alicia Alonso

Gr 4—8—An informative, beautifully illustrated introduction to the world-renowned dancer. Alonso's focused life and illustrious career are made even more remarkable by the fact that she lost her peripheral vision at age 19 and had to learn to visualize both the stage set and the dance itself in order to execute spins and lifts, and to choreograph ballets. The book is a chronological compilation of defining moments in the dancer's life. Each one is presented as a titled one-page piece in abbreviated poetic prose; many face full-page textured paintings rendered in Colón's distinctive mix of watercolor, colored, and lithograph pencils. Alonso's story begins at age five when-wrapped in tulle from her mother's store of sewing materials-she was drawn to dancing. ("Like light, she's barely aware/of the floor beneath her dancing feet.") Cuban born in 1921, she was raised as a child of privilege and studied ballet in order to "learn poise, grace, and good posture," but traveled to New York with her dancing partner, whom she married at age 16; bore a child; and immediately returned to ballet. She danced in the U.S. and, eventually, in Russia and Europe, and formed her own ballet troupe, funded by Fidel Castro. Alonso's life is recapped in detailed endnotes. The sophistication of presentation and content that involves the woman's driving strength to succeed in facing both personal setbacks and negative political influences make this a book for older audiences.—Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH