No Ballet Shoes in Syria

Catherine Bruton's No Ballet Shoes in Syria is a moving story for 9 year olds about a girl who has lost almost everything except her love of dancing.

What happens

Aya is eleven. She's come to Manchester with Mumma and her baby brother Moosa, escaping the war in Aleppo. Now they live in a hostel with paper-thin walls and wait for hours at a community centre to see a caseworker. Their first claim for asylum has been turned down.

Aya is holding everything together. Mumma has sunk into herself and hardly speaks. So it's Aya who explains their story again and again, finds nappies for Moosa and promises everyone it'll all be fine.

Then she hears piano music drifting down the stairs. There's a ballet class going on up there, and it tugs at her like nothing else.

Back in Aleppo, Aya had gone to ballet class since she was six. Her dad bought her first pointe shoes just weeks before they left. She's still got them, wrapped in plastic bags at the bottom of her rucksack.

It's Dotty who spots her at the studio door. Dotty is chatty, cheeky and wonderfully tactless (she wonders at first whether Aya might be a ghost). And the tiny, elderly teacher, Miss Helena, keeps giving Aya odd looks.

The book moves between two worlds, and it's beautifully done. The ballet scenes are full of funny, bossy teaching ("no wiggle-waggling as you close!"). In between come Aya's memories of Aleppo, before the war and as it arrived, starting with her seventh birthday party.

Is it sad? Yes, in places, very. But there's warmth everywhere too, from Dotty's jokes to Mr Abdul, the kind old man who teaches Aya chess and keeps an eye on Moosa.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The war is really there on the page. There are bombs, shooting in the streets, and an old neighbour grieving a son taken by soldiers and a daughter killed by bombs. Aya's flashes of the journey are frightening (a boat, a storm, blood in the water), and she can hardly bear to think about her dad. A child who gets anxious about the news may find parts of it hard. For a reader who's ready, it's a very honest and hopeful way into what being a refugee might feel like.

What to read next

If they'd like another story about a child starting over in Britain after running from a war, try The Boy at the Back of the Class, told by a classmate who's determined to befriend the silent new boy.