Marie, Dancing

Dancing with the Paris Opera ballet is 14-year-old Marie van Goethem's greatest joy. And yet she must honor her father's dying request to keep their poverty-stricken family together. She certainly can't count on the help of her drunken mother or selfish older sister. When famous artist Edgar Degas asks Marie to model for a sculpture, she welcomes the income-although she's hesitant to pose nude. Her bi-weekly visits to Degas' cluttered art studio introduce her to unimagined wonders and mysteries. But when the sculpture is finished, she refuses to be a rich man's mistress. She instead earns honest income as a seamstress while hoping for her chance at true love. An award-winning author of more than 50 books, Carolyn Meyer captivates young adults with her vivid historical fiction. Using actual details about the ballerina Degas immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, Meyer creates a seamless narrative of Marie's life as it might have been in 1870s Paris.