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Posted 20 hours ago

Hope in a Ballet Shoe: Orphaned by war, saved by ballet: an extraordinary true story

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Michaela DePrince was born in war-torn Sierra Leone during the decade long civil war that took place there. Fast forward 15 years and Mabinty, now Michaela, is an international ballet star dancing for the Dutch National Ballet. After the deaths of her parents, she moved to an orphanage from which she was adopted and taken to the US in 1999. there is just so much competition in the African Memoir genre, that this unfortunately pales a little in comparison to others that I have read, therefore the lowish rating. Though this isn't the most well-written book you'll ever read, and the portrayal of the Sierra Leone civil war will give you nightmares, I highly recommend it.

The world of ballet is a racist one, and Michaela has to fight for a place amongst the ballet elite, hearing the words ‘America’s not ready for a black girl ballerina. Michaela DePrince's story of going from a starving, neglected orphan to ballerina extraordinaire is inspiring, beautiful, and heartwarming. I was particularly moved by Michaela's memories of her birth parents - how much they loved her and encouraged her literacy and education, and the lasting friendship and sisterhood between Michaela and her sister. Finally getting to Ghana, adoptions were arranged and Michaela and her best friend Mia were adopted together by their new American family and began a new life at the age of 5.I found it well written and didn't think it had been too sanitised for the age group and a society lucky enough to have not experienced the reality of civil war and anarchy.

The orphans are in danger in war-torn Sierra-Leone but some American families come to their rescue and she starts a new life in America. This is reiterated in Ch 31, and yet in Ch 32 (only 3-4 pages later) she talks about how "hard" acting was, and that she couldn't hide how she felt on a given day. On its cover was the picture of a young ballet dancer and, in that moment, a spark flared in Mabinty's heart. But to say that it has saved me is not true, because I needed to be saved long before I arrived at my first ballet class.This is an autobiography about a girl named Michaela DePrince who was born in Sierra Leone and is then adopted by an American family after her parent's death in the Sierra Leone civil war.

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