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A Time to Dance
Veda has loved to dance for as long as she can remember. She does so in spite of her mother, who wants her to be an engineer. But the day she wins a Bharatanatyam dance competition is also the day her life changes. On the bus ride home there’s an accident and Veda awakens in the hospital with her right leg amputated below the knee. As she begins the slow process of relearning how to walk, she dreams of dancing again. When her old teacher rejects her, she finds a new teacher, one who believes in dancing as a way to honor Shiva — as a means of emotional expression and showing the love of the god. It is, Veda understands, part of what drew her to dance as a young child, and something that she’s lost as she began enjoying attention for her talent. In a class with the youngest children she begins to relearn the basic moves under a young man named Govinda, who also feels a connection to the spiritual elements of dance that Veda longs to rediscover. And like Veda in the past, he also faces pressure from his family to do something other than what he loves. A novel in verse about a contemporary teen in India is swiftly paced and emotionally compelling. ©2014 Cooperative Children's Book Center
CCBC Age Recommendation: Age 12 and older
Age Range:
Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-13)
Grades 9-12 (Age 14 and older)
Formats:
Novel
Poetry
Subjects:
Dance and Dancers
Faith, Spirituality and Religion
Families
Hindus
Indians and Indian Americans
Novels in Verse
Physical Disability
Teachers/Mentors
Diversity subject:
Asian
Other Religion
Physical Disability/Condition
Publishers:
Nancy Paulsen Books, Penguin
Publish Year: 2014
Pages: 307
ISBN: 9780399257100
CCBC Location: Fiction, Venkatraman