Ella Bella Ballerina and the Sleeping Beauty — James Mayhew

Little Ella Bella loves attending Madame Rosa's ballet class at the old theater. Most of all she loves the music that plays from Madame Rosa's special music box, the theme from The Sleeping Beauty ballet. One day, after ballet class has ended, Ella Bella is left alone with the music box on the theater stage. As its music begins playing, Ella is transported to the magical world where the Sleeping Beauty's story takes place. Entering the palace of Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty, Ella meets all the story's characters--not only the good ones, but also the sinister bad fairy--and she sees the famous story unfold before her very eyes. Here is an unusually imaginative retelling of the classic fairy tale, with illustrations that capture the story's magic and mystery. A brief postscript on the book's final page summarizes the history of ballet from its origins during the Italian Renaissance to the late nineteenth-century, when the famous Russian composer Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky wrote music for The Sleeping Beauty ballet.