Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove) | PICTURE BOOK TAL | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | Q J 921 TALLCHIEF | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Music flowed through young Maria Tallchief as naturally as the wind in her hair. She had only to hear a melody and out it came under her fingers on the piano or through her body in dance. When she was twelve her father told her that she would have to choose between piano and dance. "One or the other", he said, "but follow that one star". So Maria chose from the heart -- and she chose dance. It was a decision that would change not only the course of her life but the face of classical ballet in America forever.
From her early years on an Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma to her departure for New York, where her professional career was launched, the fascinating story of Maria Tallchief's rise to America's prima ballerina is sure to captivate the hearts of young readers and dance lovers alike.
Author Notes
Rosemary Wells was born in New York City on January 29, 1943. She studied at the Museum School in Boston. Without her degree, she left school at the age of 19 to get married. She began her career in publishing, working as an art editor and designer first at Allyn and Bacon and later at Macmillan Publishing.
She is an author and illustrator of over 60 books for children and young adults. Her first book was an illustrated edition of Gilbert and Sullivan's I Have a Song to Sing-O. Her other works include Martha's Birthday, The Fog Comes on Little Pig Feet, Unfortunately Harriet, Mary on Horseback, and Timothy Goes to School. She also created the characters of Max and Ruby, Noisy Nora, and Yoko, which are featured in some of her books. She has won numerous awards including a Children's Book Council Award for Noisy Nora in 1974, the Edgar Allan Poe award for two young adult books, Through the Looking Glass and When No One Was Looking, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Shy Charles.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This volume, relayed in what PW called "metaphorical language," follows Tallchief through her adolescence, on the way to joining the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. PW wrote, "Kelly's softly focused paintings underscore the lyrical tone, enveloping the characters and settings in gauzy, dreamlike light." Ages 5-9. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) In an introduction, Rosemary Wells relates her impetus for collaborating with ballerina Maria Tallchief: Wells's mother was a member of the corps de ballet of the Ballets Russe de Monte Carlo, performing when the then-sixteen-year-old Tallchief sat enthralled in the audience. In a first-person narrative, the frankly honest, even immodest, Tallchief reflects on her gifts: from God, who endowed her with a body ""born with music...inside,"" and from her mother. Her father, a full-blooded Osage, moved his oil-rich family from the reservation, first to a home in Oklahoma, where Tallchief and her sister practiced their piano daily and took inferior dance lessons, and then to Los Angeles, with its opportunities for good musical instruction. Excellent, demanding teachers further nurtured Tallchief's ""ability to speak the language of music."" In this picture book, Gary Kelley uses pastels to capture the drama of the dance, both in its studio discipline and in its evanescent beauty. Small rectangular spot art throughout sets the more intimate scenes, which contrast with sweeping full pages of landscape. A final singular circle encases a moving train showered by streaming red roses: that train will take the seventeen-year-old Tallchief to New York to realize her dream; the roses anticipate those thrown at the stage of the soon-to-be legendary dancer. Tallchief's single-minded passion, conveyed in a clear, occasionally poetic narrative, will hold appeal and meaning for an audience beyond that of hopeful ballerinas. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
``I was born with music that flowed through my body as naturally as blood in my veins,'' explains Tallchief, who, with Wells, describes her early life in lyrical and compelling prose. This brief biography follows Tallchief from her earliest dancing memories at age three until she begins formal training at seventeen. The narrative is skillfully crafted, using Tallchief's words to give voice to the whole; the authors highlight not only the early years of an artist, but the difficulty of growing up Native American in a culture that made it illegal for Tallchief to practice the language, religion, or ceremonies of her ancestors. Soft pastel illustrations in a style that recalls Degas are a luminous, often astonishing addition to this moving and joyful introductory biography; balletomanes will hope that a continuation of Tallchief's history is in the works. (Picture book. 7-10)
Booklist Review
Gr. 3^-5. In picture-book format, Tallchief's story begins with her childhood on an Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma, where she took her first piano and dance lessons. After moving to Los Angeles, her parents found excellent teachers for the young dancer, who loved expressing the music with her body and worked hard to fulfill her aspiration to dance with the best, the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo. The book ends with 17-year-old Tallchief leaving for New York to follow her dreams. In addition to the people and places remembered from childhood, Tallchief discusses the gift of music, which she and her parents recognized early as a driving force in her life. The joint authorship may cause some readers to wonder whose words are whose, yet the voice of the text speaks with great clarity, dignity, and power, occasionally lit by flashes of imagery and memory. Equally powerful and well crafted are the illustrations in heavily applied pastels. Gary Kelley grasps forms with a cubist's awareness of the solidity of people and objects, then arranges them to make an effective representational picture in two dimensions. Despite the book's large format and many illustrations, the length of the text and sophistication of the artwork indicate an older readership than the usual picture-book audience. A stirring choice for children (and perhaps some adults) who take their ballet seriously. --Carolyn Phelan
Library Journal Review
Gr 2-4-A picture-book autobiography of the early years of America's first internationally significant ballerina. Through eloquent words, readers are immediately drawn into this first-person narrative. The story opens with Tallchief's birth on an Osage Indian reservation. Her Scots-Irish mother made sure that Maria and her sister received dance and music lessons, and eventually her father persuaded her to choose between piano and dance. The rest is history. The story ends when, at age 17, Maria left home to seek her fame and fortune in New York. As beautiful as the text is, so too are Kelley's pictures. The large illustrations, several covering double-page spreads, are rendered in soft pastels. The text and artwork combine to make a pleasing introduction to a fascinating person. Wells's personal connection to ballet and Tallchief, explained in the introduction, makes this effort all the more stirring. All told, a simple, lovely offering.-Anne Chapman Callaghan, Racine Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
