{Synopsis} – Malie’s mom manages an ice cream parlor, but Malie’s real love is ballet. She dreams of landing the lead in an upcoming production of Cinderella and dancing onstage while her boyfriend, Ethan, cheers from the audience. But Malie’s mom is less than supportive.
Then cute new boy Alonzo arrives from Italy. His true love is ice cream — gelato, to be exact. Alonzo offers a Malie a deal: If she lets him help out at the parlor, she can take dance lessons from his mom, a famed ballerina.
As Malie pirouettes between the parlor and the ballet studio, things start to spin out of control. Does she have feelings for Alonzo? What about Ethan? And if she doesn’t get a role in Cinderella, can she find her happily ever after?
{My thoughts} – Malie is a sweet girl that aspires to be an incredible ballet dancer. She has goals, and she has so many dreams of how she’d like to see herself in the future. She also has a job helping her mom at the local ice cream shop called Once Upon a Scoop. She has a boyfriend named Ethan that she is more or less just comfortable with, but he doesn’t seem to be anymore then just a friend when it all comes down to it.
Things get a bit shook up in her world when her ballet teacher steps down and the school she attends hires a new instructor. The new instructor causes the school to double the tuition prices as well as a new student at her school to appear.
Malie goes through a series of events in the book that would break and make any child at her age. I enjoyed reading about her determination and her desire to do more, to do better. Her desire to prove just how much dance meant to her as well as her desire to help her mom with the ice cream shop. However, throughout most of the book Malie has to make a number of important choices and some of them end up not being the best. This book helps to show that even though you make bad choices that your parents will still be there to love and support you and that your friends will still be your friends. Sometimes, it’s best just to wait things out and have faith.
I think that any child that is struggling with too much on their plate could benefit from reading this. Also any child that desires to be good at dance or any extracurricular activity could also benefit from reading this book. I think it could make a nice addition to any child’s bookshelf.
Final Conclusion: 5 Star Rating.
