A story about bipolar disorder

Review and Interview questions written by Jen, 21, Canada

BOOK REVIEW

The Phoenix Dance, by Dia Calhoun, is an imaginative re-telling of the classic Grimm’s fairytale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses that interweaves the story of a young girl trying to find her place in the world. In both stories, twelve beautiful and tragic princesses are locked up each night, only to awaken in the morning with their delicate slippers worn away to shreds and their minds and bodies exhausted.

In The Phoenix Dance the young heroine, of the same name, has dreams of becoming a shoe maker’s apprentice and practices her craft by making shoes for her aunts, all three of whom are dancers in the mystical kingdom of Windward. Phoenix fights against the confines placed on her by society which labels her as a “beggar child” and by her aunts who wish for her to follow in their artistic footsteps. When her opportunity to realize her dream finally comes true, she finds herself overwhelmed with excitement and joy, until disaster strikes.

The twelve princesses of Windward have danced their way through every pair of shoes made for them by the royal shoemaker, under whom Phoenix is apprenticed, causing him to lose his royal status. To help solve the mystery of how the princesses manage to dance their shoes to shreds, while locked inside their rooms at night, a contest is held in the kingdom to find not only a new Royal Shoemaker but an answer to the mystery. Phoenix is not only awarded the role of the newest and youngest Royal Shoemaker but also the task of finding out what happens to the princesses each night.
To solve the mystery Phoenix must face dangerous wizards, troubling friendships, treachery and her own frightening foray into the Illness of Two Kingdoms, a disease that leaves her feeling joy and sorrow to the utmost extreme and is perhaps the most challenging danger of all.