Tanya and the Magic Wardrobe
Kindergarten-Grade 3.  When Tanya and her mother arrive early at the theater for a performance of Coppelia, the girl follows an elderly woman down a hallway and discovers a dressing room with a green wardrobe full of wonderful costumes. Tanya and the woman dress up and dance parts from Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and the Nutcracker Suite. Finally, they perform Coppelia, with Tanya as the magic doll, and the dressing room becomes a stage complete with scenery and beautifully costumed dancers. The book ends with Tanya sitting down with her mother to watch the ballet she has just seen in her own imagination. Ballet fans will snap up this latest addition to the popular series and will turn again and again to the illustrations of Coppelia, painted in colors just dark enough to be mysterious. The two-page spread showing all of the toys coming to life in luminous detail captures perfectly the magic of the famous ballet. The smoothly written text provides just enough narrative to keep the story flowing, letting the illustrations fill in the rest. Once again, Tanya steals the show in this well-executed picture book that pays tribute both to the beauty of dance and to the power of a child's imagination.?Dawn Amsberry, Oakland Public Library, CACopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.