Dance!
Book not yet available in English
Summary:
Robin, a restless thirteen-year-old girl, can’t stand the other girls’ silly crushes on famous actors and singers. She only has male friends with whom she doesn’t need to talk much and with whom she shares a passion for hip-hop. She is so good that her father decides to enrol her in a dance school. There Robin the wild meets Guido, the delicate ballet dancer. Will a friendship begin? [Publisher’s website]
Edited by: Centro MeTRa - Università di Bologna (Italy)
Comment:
Dance! is an interesting novel for pre-adolescents and teenagers, aged 11 and up. The strength of the narrative are the unconventional and realistic characters, starting with the protagonist, Robin, a twelve-year-old girl from the suburbs of Milan who is often mistaken for a boy because of her clothing and her rough manners. Left by her mother, who has decided to devote her life to volunteering in Third World countries, she is raised by her father and grandparents. Her life changes when she decides to follow her passion for hip hop and enrolls in a dance class. Here she realises she has talent, discovers how to channel her frustrations, and meets Guido, a delicate and educated 13-year-old who is a promising young ballet dancer. The two could not be more different, yet a sincere and intense friendship begins between them. The novel’s interest in diversity is also shown in the presence of different types of families (single parents or fathers in old age) and characters of different ethnicity, as it is common in a city suburb. With its interest in proposing alternative models to the conventional ones of mainstream narratives for the young readers, Dance! is an engaging, enjoyable, and high-quality novel. The narrative is never pedantic or didactic, and it presents a remarkable frankness that does not censor the most difficult aspects of growing up (such as thirteen-year-olds dressing in high heels and tight clothes or looking at pornography). Another strength is the complexity of relationships and feelings: Robin feels desire, contempt, and anger towards her mother who abandoned her when she was very young; Aldo, the single father, struggles to relate to such a peculiar daughter; Shane, the American mother, prefers to save the dispossessed in the Third World rather than look after Robin. All these elements make the novel advisable not only for 11/12-year-old pre-adolescents, but also (and perhaps above all) a slightly older audience, able to appreciate the richness of the themes. Downside: despite its straightforwardness and desire to deal with unconventional characters, LGBTQ+ issues remain between the lines, without being fully explicit to the reader. Since the insult “faggot” is used (and condemned by the narration), it is a pity that no proper terms are proposed for the homosexual (or bi) dance teacher or for the protagonist herself, struggling with her first confused crush on the ballet dancer Chantal.