Ballet Besties: Yara's Chance to Dance

by Yasmine Naghdi, Paula Franco (Illustrator)

Overview

Pirouette your way to the Shimmer and Shine dance studio! This first offering in a fun, inclusive, and accessible early chapter-book series brings the joy of dance to young readers.

When Yara joins a community dance school, she meets lots of other children her age who are there to start their training or just for the fun of it. Soon she has a group of ballet besties she loves to dance with—until their grumpy landlady, Dame Clougston-Willmott, threatens to close the studio. Suddenly it’s up to Yara and her new friends to keep Shimmer and Shine open! Will putting on a performance of The Sleeping Beauty reawaken the Dame’s love for dance? Could Yara have a chance to dance her dream role of Aurora? And most important of all, can the ballet besties save their studio? From a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet and an award-winning children’s author comes an engaging story of friendship, responsibility, and teamwork, with back matter explaining the various dance techniques and more. Black-and-white illustrations bring a diverse group of characters to life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536247411
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	09/09/2025
Series:	Ballet Besties , #2
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.13(w) x 7.81(h) x 0.62(d)
Age Range:	7 - 9 Years

About the Author

Yasmine Naghdi is a principal of the Royal Ballet and has been dancing with the company since 2010. Her many roles include Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Princess Aurora (The Sleeping Beauty), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), and the Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker). She has performed all over the world and is passionate about showing that ballet is for everyone. Yasmine Naghdi lives in London.

Chitra Soundar is the award-winning author of more than forty books for children, including a series of chapter books about Sona Sharma, illustrated by Jen Khatun, as well as A Sliver of Moon and a Shard of Truth: Stories from India, illustrated by Uma Krishnaswamy, and It’s Time to Hush and Say Good Night, illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat. Chitra Soundar loves writing books in a variety of genres and travels the world visiting schools and appearing at festivals to bring Indian stories to children everywhere. She grew up in Chennai, India, and lives in southeast London.

Paula Franco studied illustration and graphic design at Instituto Superior Comunicación Visual in Argentina and now illustrates children’s books. She lives in Argentina.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One
Yara woke up that morning before her alarm went off. She was just too excited to sleep. It was finally Tuesday—the best Tuesday of her entire life, because that afternoon Yara would be going to a proper ballet class in a proper studio with a proper real-life ballet teacher.
The first thing Yara did, after getting out of bed, was check and double-check her new ballet bag.

-Three leotards and a wrap-around skirt
-Three pairs of ballet tights
-Hair accessories: a bun cover, a pack of hairnets, hairpins, and hairbands
-Pair of soft ballet shoes
-Pair of knitted leg warmers
-Padlock and key for the locker room

Check, check, check!
Normally Yara wouldn’t have bought new dance wear, but this new place was special. After years of learning by herself, she would finally be part of a class and perform with other dancers. Also, that summer Yara had grown a bit taller and her old leotards and tights didn’t fit well, so it was time for new ones for a fresh start.
Last month, Yara had moved with her family to this town from another country. Before that, they’d moved many times, following her papa’s job wherever it took him. He was an eco-engineer who worked with factories all over the world to make them less polluting. Yara didn’t mind the moving around—she got to see so many new places—but it did mean she’d never been able to join a ballet school before. This time, however, Papa was going to work here permanently and they could settle down at last.
“It’ll be good for your studies,” said Mama when Papa had shared the news that this move would be the last one, “for us to be based in one place.”
“And for ballet,” Yara had replied. “I can finally go to a proper ballet school, where I can actually stay long enough to become a professional dancer.”
Papa laughed. “School and ballet, Yara,” he said, “in that order.”
“But—” Yara started to object.
“We’ll make a deal with you, Yara,” Mama said, putting an arm around her. “We’ll find you a good ballet school, but you must promise to focus on school and keep your grades up.”
Yara loved ballet more than anything else in the world. When she was four, Mama had enrolled her in a gymnastics class, but Yara had opened the wrong door in the studio and stood enthralled, watching a ballet class in progress. She wanted to dance like them. She begged Mama to move her into that class, even if only for the short time they were living there, and had never stopped dancing since. When they moved to cities where there were no ballet teachers near them, they’d find someone to teach Yara online. But it wasn’t the same. Each teacher had taught her in different ways, and Yara longed for consistency.
The worst part of not learning in a proper ballet school, though, was that it was lonely—there was no one to enjoy practice with or make friends with. The online classes were good for learning and it was great that she could do them anywhere, but they could never replace the feeling of dancing with a group in an actual studio.
But all that was going to change now! Mama had found a ballet school called Shimmer and Shine, just around the corner from their new house. It was run by a friendly woman named Miss Diamond, who also taught the classes there. The day they had gone to check it out, Yara instantly knew that she was the perfect ballet teacher—she was kind and welcoming, and when she moved, she looked like a fairy gliding through the air.
“We just opened a year ago,” Miss Diamond explained as she showed them around. “You will be joining a class with children of different abilities, but you’re all about the same age, so I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”
Shimmer and Shine was a proper studio, even though it looked a bit old. The floors were soft and cushioned, so the dancers wouldn’t slip when they jumped and moved across the floor. There were support bars, called barres, along the mirrored walls, and some freestanding ones as well, around the room. While Mama and Miss Diamond were talking, Yara stood at the barre and struck a pose, checking herself in the mirror as she did so.
“What do you think?” Mama asked Yara.
Miss Diamond caught Yara’s eyes and smiled. “I know everything looks as if it’s from a long time ago, but I can assure you that it’s all safe.”
Yara didn’t mind that it was old. It felt loved and cozy. “I like it,” she whispered to Mama.
Miss Diamond explained that Yara would have two after-school ballet classes during the week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and a third on Saturday mornings.
“That seems like a lot,” said Mama.
“It’ll be fine, Mama,” Yara reassured her. “I can do it.”
They agreed that she would start that week, which would be the first session back for the whole class after the summer break and would give her a full week of ballet lessons before school started too. Yara thought she would quite happily swap ballet for school permanently. If only her parents would let her.
Right after they had enrolled, Mama had taken Yara to get her new ballet gear at a boutique in town. Pink and brown pointe shoes were neatly stacked in the window, and inside, tutus and leotards hung everywhere you looked. Yara was in heaven! Gus, the owner of the shop, said he had been a ballet dancer once, and every time Yara picked out something, he did a perfect pirouette and said, “Gosh, that’s such a good choice.”
Yara giggled, thinking about their time at the shop.
Knock, knock!
Mama peeked her head around the bedroom door, interrupting Yara’s daydream. “Ready to go?”
“Do you need to even ask? I’m always ready for ballet!” replied Yara.
“Class isn’t for a few hours yet, silly! We’re going to the patisserie first. You can get some breakfast there, and then I’ll drop you off at the studio this afternoon,” said Mama. It wasn’t just Yara’s dad who’d gotten a new job when they’d moved—her mama had opened her own patisserie called the Cake Stop. After the Shimmer and Shine studio, it was Yara’s favorite place in town.
Yara jumped off her bed and riffled through her ballet bag to check one last time that everything was packed before she zipped it up and flung it over her shoulder.
“Did you pack your new schoolbag yet?” asked Mama, chuckling at Yara’s enthusiasm.
Yara headed downstairs. “Not yet. School doesn’t start for another week. I’ll have plenty of time to do that later.”
Mama rolled her eyes and smiled. “Remember our deal!” she said. “School and ballet, hand in hand.” But Yara was already out the front door, wondering what Miss Diamond’s first lesson would be.

Editorial Reviews

Gentle grayscale illustrations cheerfully match the easy tone of the story.. . .ballet enthusiasts and fans of friendship stories will enjoy its warmth and charm. . . .A sweet friendship story tied neatly in a ballet bun.
—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2025-08-02
Moving is tough, but if it means that ballet-loving Yara gets to take lessons at a real dance studio, she’s ready for the challenge.

On Yara’s first day of ballet class with Miss Diamond at the Shimmer and Shine dance school, her nerves are calmed by welcoming new friends—especially a girl named Indu who’s also in her class at school. Yara’s parents insist that she prioritize schoolwork over ballet, but how can she focus when all she can think about is dance? Balancing school and ballet gets even trickier when Shimmer and Shine’s wealthy, uptight owner threatens to close the studio. Miss Diamond’s class resolves to stage a performance of Tchaikovsky’sThe Sleeping Beauty in an attempt to save the studio, and Yara lands the leading role. But when Yara’s schoolwork falls by the wayside, will she get back on track? Gentle grayscale illustrations cheerfully match the easy tone of the story. While Yara’s conflicts are wrapped up with surprising ease, ballet enthusiasts and fans of friendship stories will enjoy its warmth and charm. Biracial Yara has light brown skin (her pale-skinned mother is Belgian, and her father has brown skin), while the rest of the ballet besties are diverse, and Indu is cued South Asian.

A sweet friendship story tied neatly in a ballet bun. (glossary of ballet terms, ballet basics, story ofThe Sleeping Beauty, recipe)(Fiction. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews