THE GRACEFUL GHOST: A story for girls rich with authentic ballet school detail and sparkling with ghostly mischief by Eleanor Dixon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the story of Grace, the ghost of a little girl who is bound to Amberwood Hall, the place she was born and died in, she wants to be able to leave, but can’t and Lauren, a young girl who wants to dance but cannot let herself do it with the addition of fun loving Rodney, a fellow ghost of a stable boy and friend of Grace’s. It starts with Grace and Rodney sat in a tree watching the new arrivals to the school pull up in their fancy cars ready for the days auditions, they are talking about who Grace might be able to help to realise their dream so she can realise hers, but none of the girls are standing out as yet, Grace is getting a little frustrated but can still laugh at Rodney when he tries to do ballet as he leaps out of the tree and straight into the path of a car, this is where Grace has a feeling she may have found her girl. Next she goes into the changing rooms to see if she was right, as she listens to the conversations, she hears the same old things and moves further in, then she finds her, Lauren, as she gets her number, her mum suggests she warms up, Grace notices how flexible and soft she is and begins to think that she might be mistaken, that is until the actual audition starts and Lauren transforms into someone completely different, she is stiff, has no balance and is surrounded by a wall of negative energy, but Grace needed Lauren at the school so she could help her, so she made the decision to sing into her ear and help her to release the negativity and dance to her full potential and she ends up doing just that and winning the scholarship, so believing she had done her bit, Grace tries to leave, but is unable to, much to her disappointment and unfortunately Lauren had already left by then.

When the new term arrived and all the girls came back to the boarding school, so did Lauren, but she didn’t seem as happy as Grace thought she should be, but when she tried to speak to her, Lauren just could not see or hear her, this was extremely frustrating for Grace, but she was determined to get to the bottom of Lauren’s issue with dancing and so decided to be patient after talking it over with Rodney. As Lauren settles in to her new dormitory, she feels really cold and all of a sudden a picture falls off the wall and smashes, this startles her from feeling so annoyed at herself for passing the audition, it was her mum’s dream and not hers and she was determined not to enjoy it after everything that had happened, she was also disappointed in herself for passing the audition and getting the scholarship, while also realising how different she was to the other girls and when two walk into the dormitory, one seems nice, but the other one is snarky and acted as though they might catch something off her, so when they leave to go and get supper. As Lauren goes to report the broken picture to Matron, she is waylaid by the sound of her favourite opera music coming from the top of some stairs, when she goes to investigate she finds that it is an old rehearsal studio and feeling the sudden need to dance, she does, until the supper bell sounds and she rushes so she isn’t late.

At supper, all the new girls are asked to stand up when their names are called so that nobody feels like they don’t know anyone, the nice girl from earlier sits with Lauren and starts talking with her, Grace follows her the whole time to try and get to know her a bit better, but when classes start and Lauren goes back to how she danced during the start of her audition, Grace tries even harder to get her attention. The term progresses and Lauren becomes more friendly with one girl, but the others aren’t nice to her at all, but talking to her mum helps her realise that maybe her being there is a good thing after all, she sounds better than she did a couple of months ago, but Lauren still feels the negativity whenever she goes to dance. Can Lauren, Grace work together, or will they both be trapped by their pasts and unable to move on and where does Rodney fit into all of this? This is a heartwarming tale with some fun, competition and a lot of ballet, a great novel for children and adults to escape into alike.

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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