Miss Lina’s Ballerinas and the Wicked Wish

In the third story to feature Miss Lina and her ballet students, a dapper visitor to the class offers a big opportunity for the children to star in a production of Sleeping Beauty—eight as ballerinas, and two as rats. Unhappily assigned to be a rat, Regina is plagued by nightmares of rodents, and wishes for a ballerina to get sick so that she can take her place. An even worse nightmare awaits Regina in class, though, as one student after another suffers illness and injury. Davenier’s fluid brushstrokes are still a lovely match for Maccarone’s alliterative verse. It’s an empathic and gently humorous story about a challenging emotion, delivered with a hint of Bemelmans’s Madeline stories—and of magic. Ages 4–up. (Oct.)