Thursday, December 1, 2016

Books of December - The Nutcracker

Cozy Classics - those board books that attempt to encapsulate great literature in needle-felted illustrations - have produced their own cozy little version of the Nutcracker!!





Is this not the cutest thing???!!!








Lisbeth Zwerger's artwork spins a world all its own.  A new version of her book about E.T.A. Hoffman's odd little story came out in September.  The Nutcracker with illustrations by Lisbeth Zwerger.












Every year, ballet companies all over the USA, put on versions of The Nutcracker.  If you have more than one little dancer in your life, you can probably hum all the movements AND identify them.  And so it has been since the dawning of time.  Tchaikovsky did not write his ballet until 1892. 

Well then, American ballet companies have had dancing mice, soldiers, and sugar plum fairies since, 1910 at least, right?   Not so, my little Chinese mushroom.

The Nutcracker Comes to America by Chris Barton tells the story of three brothers who loved ballet and danced whenever and wherever they could.  They performed America's first full length Nutcracker ballet during World War II. 


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