ON THE LINE

The first African American Rockette tells her story.

Jennifer Jones fell in love with dance in her first class at age 9. Using her body to express herself as she danced ballet, jazz, and tap, she felt free and bold. Outside of class, though, she was painfully shy—her mother was white and her father was Black, and their family stood out in their New Jersey town. After an ignorant clerk yelled at her for dancing in a store (“Girls like you don’t become dancers”), Jennifer’s joy was nearly diminished, but her father brought home a piece of linoleum for Jennifer to practice dancing on. From then on, she danced every day and felt free from the ignorance of others. Her first stage performance, in fourth grade, “felt like home,” but that clerk’s mean comment still lingered. When her parents took her to see The Wiz on Broadway, the sight of the all-Black cast gave her the confidence she needed to eventually audition for the Radio City Rockettes, where she danced for 15 years. Though this tale explores painful emotions, its focus on Jennifer’s personal experience and the pleasure she found in dance make it an absolute delight. In relatable first-person narration, Jones ends the narrative by addressing children: “What will your story be?” Paul deftly uses gestures and facial expressions in the line-and-color illustrations to lead readers through Jones’ emotional journey. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Exhilarating.