ABSTRACT
Despite what the critics and reviewers report, ballet and the ballet establishment are not the "wonderful" part of Siegel's story; rather, in the narrative arc it is actually her escape from it that is the resolution. In children's literature, ballet does not easily translate as something other than a dress-up identity that invites readers to filter the story through their desire for ballet to teach life lessons and a have happy ending, to be enviable and beautiful, apolitically disengaged from any ideological flaws. Many readers will focus on Siegel's success as a ballet dancer and misread it as the point of the story, an avenue for life lessons. According to the arc of the story, it is her life after ballet that actually heals the traumas imposed on her by ballet wounds; the happy ending is the day she leaves the establishment, not the fact that she dedicates herself to it for so many years.
