E book: Grandmother’s Reward
Writer: Colleen Cavanaugh, Stillwater Books, April 2026.
Glittering rhinestones, a sweeping romantic rating, a sure enchantment of the transferring physique assembly fastidiously crafted aesthetic parts; pointe sneakers leaving toes bloody, sweaty dancewear in a messy ballet bag, the merciless realities of rejection and perfection sought remaining unattainable…the artwork type of ballet holds each of those qualities of being, each the enchanted and the gritty. Colleen Cavanaugh’s Grandmother’s Reward, a coming-of-age ballerina novel bursting with magical realism, vividly paints an image of this dichotomy.
The e book tells the story of Celia, a teenage dancer from Rhode Island (similar to the writer, and yours really!). Her journey began with a formative summer time intensive, which led her to New York Metropolis: first as a runaway, then with the cautious assist of her household. Following her 17th birthday, she found that she had a singular reward: she may fly.
Sure, you learn that proper; she may fly like a chicken. Over the course of the story, she realized that she is a part of a lineage – via her grandmother, a former skilled dancer – of dancers who may fly (along with associated items, comparable to communing with different flying dancers through goals). That’s the magic inside this story.
But, the story can also be very a lot grounded in gritty realities: teenage romance and heartbreak, friendship challenges, grief of elders passing, self-doubts about one’s personal artistry, and competing needs pulling one’s coronary heart in diversified instructions.
The work is appropriate for readers of all ages. The prose is easy and accessible (though additionally, at instances, fantastically poetic), and looks like it will be extremely relatable – even instructive – for teenage readers. With a eager literary eye, one can spot deeper layers. Thus, extra mature readers can even discover so much to understand. Clocking in at simply over 240 pages, it’s additionally a fast, environment friendly learn. Black-and-white sketch illustrations from Carolyn Winter are each whimsical and evocative.
An efficient and intriguing approach of evaluating the textual content appears to be its diversified themes, motifs, and parts. First is the enchantment. The textual content opens with one in all Celia’s flying goals, the place she was a chicken (usually in a flock of birds, and in a single comical scene, dealing with off towards a rowdy squirrel).
Her grandmother woke her up, and since she was in poor health, supplied her alphabet soup. The letters flew across the kitchen; they “darted, circled, and dipped throughout the room.” Because the story progresses and Celia turned extra linked together with her flying items, she woke as much as little souvenirs of her chicken goals: feathers.
There may be, after all, the flying. In a single scene, with (eventual love curiosity) Tony, Cavanaugh viscerally describes their “sky-born pas de deux”: “They began to launch one another with extra drive. Their arcs widened. They fastidiously realized to regulate their velocity and course.”
Curiously, on the next web page is the extra life like magic of a (grounded) pas de deux with Tony that flowed, simply clicked: “He simply lifted her excessive within the air and their promenades have been easy…It was really easy with him. He was a magician. The motion simply appeared to occur.” Cavanaugh thus underscored the enchantment inside such moments between transferring our bodies – no literal flying required.
Nearer to earth (actually and figuratively), Celia confronted typical teenaged challenges. Her dad and mom, however particularly her father, questioned the practicality of her dancing dream – and she or he needed to show that she may make it work for herself. She skilled confusion with younger romance, with one boy dashing and debonair (however clearly morally questionable) and one other who was good to her and good-hearted (that’s Tony – who, sure, can even fly!).
One thing brewing with Tony threatened her friendship with Alicia, who she met at that early summer time intensive and with whom she rapidly turned shut. Celia missed her terribly till they have been reconnected. Alicia ended up beginning on a path other than skilled efficiency – an instance of the completely different instructions that dance can lead us, and the methods younger folks should negotiate these selections for themselves.
Celia skilled the anxieties of auditioning, nervousness as a rookie firm member, and the packed scheduling of a younger dancer. Clear additionally within the textual content is the stress between rigor and abandonment inherent to bounce artistry. Cavanaugh depicted the kinetic immediacy buzzing from a ballet class: accessible and probably compelling for non-dancers, acquainted and relatable for dancers.
One pretty instance: “[Celia] imagined beams of sunshine taking pictures from her middle, via her arms and into every finger, reaching into house and serving to her to steadiness. When she jumped, these beams radiated into the house round her.”
Counterbalancing that magic, nonetheless, are the widespread doubts and naivetes so many younger dancers expertise; Celia believed that “if she may obtain bodily perfection, she could be stunning and eventually land a job in a ballet firm.”
Cavanaugh supplied the identical with rehearsals, this one with Teri, the primary choreographer Celia danced with as knowledgeable:
Teri began to control the phrases in house and create patterns. She finally added music and the dancers performed with the cadences of the brand new motion, integrating it with the brand new sound. The tempos of among the phrases modified due to the music. It was difficult however enjoyable, like placing collectively items of a puzzle. Phrases sped up or slowed down as they tucked themselves into melodies of the music. On the finish of the rehearsal, Celia was grinning.
The backdrop of all this was New York Metropolis, which Cavanaugh painted in vivid imagery. Driving via town together with her mom, Celia noticed “three-story brownstones and tall house buildings…streets alive with folks of all ages,” energetic canines on walks, and consumers weighed down by large baggage of purchases.
The vacation season introduced “shows of fats, jolly Santas, cute dancing elves, youngsters opening presents, blazing fireplaces, pretend snow, and steaming scorching chocolate.” The vacations in NYC actually do resonate with a singular glow, a sure magic!
Celia’s relationship together with her personal flying additionally introduced compelling social and emotional dynamics. Her studying concerning the reward, and studying to handle it, was a gradual course of – one which wasn’t achieved for her because the story closed.
Her first discovering her personal flight: “at any time when the ballon of a leap was found, the leap at all times appeared to hover a little bit longer within the air, escaping gravity. It was part of what made dancing a lot enjoyable. However this…”
The younger girl feared that if her flying have been to be found, it may change her dancing and her life without end – maybe for the more serious. Would it not carry fame, and would that be constructive? Would it not change her dancing, altering the progress she’d made in starting a efficiency profession and even precluding it completely? Studying that her grandmother gave up flying for love of her household, and dancing, added weight and dimension to this advanced matter.
Like all younger individual dealing with distinctive challenges, she made errors. After class at her house studio over vacation break, a younger pupil noticed her flying. She even let a little bit of her flight go throughout one efficiency. All of her family members impressed upon her the hazard and folly of that selection – admonishments she accepted and realized from.
Crucially, nonetheless, Celia didn’t face these points alone. She had Tony and Alycia – and a few of her hardest instances inside the narrative have been when communication with them was paused. She even described sharp loneliness throughout these intervals. But much more significant, arguably, have been her connections with the elders on this group of flying dancers: her grandmother, her instructor “Mr. A” and his spouse, her NYC housemate Bea, and (later within the narrative) Mia.
These elders helped her kind out her confusions and anxieties concerning the path forward – mainly, her relationship together with her flying reward and the way she’d reconcile it together with her dancing objectives, but in addition all that teenaged drama of younger romance, friendships, and starting to work in direction of her goals.
The prevalence of those relationships underscores the significance of lineage inside dance, in addition to communal assist. The dance life isn’t for the faint of coronary heart, and such assist – embodied in sweaty hugs and heard in dressing room chatter – is important for making one’s approach via it.
This distinctive connection is obvious within the e book’s ending scene, a gathering of flying dancers at Mia’s Connecticut barn house, in addition to within the relationships between dancers of Celia’s first firm: heat, supportive, and welcoming to her.
Whether or not via dancers in a corps or birds in a flock, inside the magic or the realism, such unity sings from the pages of Grandmother’s Reward. That’s a poignant reminder to benefit from the enchantment, get pleasure from what’s a bit extra tough and actual, get pleasure from each – however get pleasure from it in good firm.
By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.
