The Ballet Class by Adele Geras and Shelagh McNicholas (Orchard Press)

At home, Charlotte is amazingly heavy-footed for a 4 year old girl who weighs less than an oak leaf, but when she had a stint at ballet classes she was amazingly fleet of foot and absolutely loves anything to do with Ballet (including, obviously, wearing those pink tutus - in fact if we pick her up from preschool and she's not wearing the preschool tutu, we think there's something wrong with her) so this book was an instant hit.

It's the simple story of a little girl called Tilly who goes to ballet class every Tuesday. She practices hard for the big ballet show.

Each page sneaks in lots of illustrations that hint at how 'good toes, naughty toes' and 'pleies and Jetes' lead to fluid dance movements, but told in a real child-friendly story format. Tilly is an easy character for little girls to identify with too, so it's a great book if your youngster is slightly obsessed about ballet and dance (as Charlotte is).

Charlotte's best bit: Tilly dressing up as a cat. Miaow!

Daddy's favourite bit: Jake (the only boy in class) doing the dinosaur dance.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars