American Ballet Theater soloist Misty Copeland encourages a young ballet student, with brown skin like her own, by telling her that she, too, had to learn basic steps and how to be graceful when she was starting out, and that some day, with practice and dedication, the little girl will become a firebird, too. Includes author's note about dancers who led her to find her voice.

Lili dreams of becoming a ballerina and goes to her ballet lessons four afternoons a week.

Tanya loves to dance but has trouble integrating her steps with the clapping and counting of her ballet teacher, until she tries moving to the music and the sounds inside her head.

Angelina loves to dance and wants to become a ballerina more than anything else in the world.

A young girl describes her ballet class which meets twice a week.

Angelina the mouse loves dancing with her friends at Miss Lilly's Ballet School; zooming up and down on roller coasters; being in the comforting arms of her mother; and hearing her father play the fiddle.

Having learned to dance as a group and with a boy, the ballerinas at Miss Lina's school face their biggest challenge yet in a production of Sleeping Beauty, which is complicated by Regina's disappointment about her role.

Tallulah is frustrated because the grownups will not let her try dancing in toe shoes yet, so she sneaks a pair out of the wastebasket and tries on her own.

A ballet-loving swan wins acclaim when she manages to join the other dancers in a performance of Swan Lake.

Tilly is thrilled when she gets to see her aunt perform in the ballet, "The Sleeping Beauty," especially because she gets to go backstage and even on the stage itself.