However young the reader of [A Young Person's Guide to Ballet], the interest can always be accompanied by awareness. I wish, therefore, that Noel Streatfeild had included more about appreciation in her otherwise excellent story of a boy and a girl learning to dance, for there are at least seven companies of varying quality regularly touring the provinces now. Her earnest desire to give, perhaps too much, purely factual information has led in several places to stilted and unnatural dialogue. Also it is difficult to believe that the children's parents (a doctor and a vet) would be hard-pressed to find the price of a theatre seat.

But these things aside, the book is sure to delight the many ballet enthusiasts among the children of today…. It sensibly does not make light of the difficulties, hard work and disappointments which face the child bent on a dancing career, and...