Ready to Fly: How Sylvia Townsend Became the Bookmobile Ballerina

By Lea Lyon, Jessica Gibson and Alexandria LaFaye

Lyrical, inspiring, and affecting text paired with bright, appealing illustrations make Ready to Fly perfect for aspiring ballerinas everywhere who are ready to leap and to spread their wings!

Ready to Fly is the true story of Sylvia Townsend, an African American girl who falls in love with ballet after seeing Swan Lake on TV. This nonfiction picture book is an excellent choice to share at home or in the classroom. 

Although there aren’t many ballet schools that will accept a girl like Sylvia in the 1950s, her local bookmobile provides another possibility. A librarian helps Sylvia find a book about ballet and the determined seven-year-old, with the help of her new books, starts teaching herself the basics of classical ballet.

Soon Sylvia learns how to fly—how to dance—and how to dare to dream.

Includes a foreword from Sylvia Townsend, a brief history of the bookmobile, an author’s note, and a further reading list.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jul 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9780063068131

Lea Lyon

Lea Lyon is an illustrator of children's books. Recent titles include Say Something by Peggy Moss and Keep Your Ear on the Ball by Genevieve Petrillo.

Book preview

Reviews for Ready to Fly

[abigailadams26 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Growing up in the 1950s, Sylvia Townsend loved every kind of music and every kind of dance. When she saw a performance of Swan Lake on television, she decided that she needed to learn ballet, but her parents couldn't afford lessons. Aided by the librarian staffing the bookmobile which would visit her neighborhood, Sylvia began to teach herself about ballet, eventually going on to show some of her friends the steps. When a teacher stepped in with an offer to pay for lessons, it seemed that Sylvia's dream had come true, until a painful reality intruded: the local ballet schools did not want to take an African-American pupil. Ballet was for white girls. Refusing to give up, Sylvia continued to dance, eventually winning the opportunity to try out with Madame Sawicka, a Russian emigre ballet instructor who agreed to take her on as a pupil. Eventually, Sylvia Townsend would indeed become a ballet dancer, and would open her own dance school in the San Francisco Bay area...I have read and enjoyed a number of picture-books illustrated by Lea Lyon - Peggy Moss' Say Something, Genevieve Petrillo's Keep Your Ear on the Ball, and others - but Ready to Fly: How Sylvia Townsend Became the Bookmobile Ballerina is her debut as an author, and I was interested in it for that reason. It is one of a number of inspiring picture-book biographies of ballet dancers that I have read in the last few years, and it tells an engrossing tale of a young girl who never gave up on her dream, no matter the challenge. Whether it was poverty, the lack of proper instruction, the racism that kept her out for a time - Sylvia Townsend met every obstacle with determination, working hard and persisting. I appreciated the brief foreword from Townsend herself, in which she communicates the message that children have their own talents, and have the potential in them to make their dreams a reality. I also appreciated the back matter, which gives more information about Townsend and about bookmobiles, which have had such a positive impact on people of all walks of life, all over the country. The accompanying artwork here from illustrator Jessica Gibson is colorful and cute, in a digital, cartoon-style way, but I found myself wishing that another artist had been chosen. There's nothing wrong with the visuals, but I think a different style of art might have been more appealing, in conjunction with the story. Tastes vary of course, so take that as you will. This would pair nicely with a picture-book biography of another ballet dancer - Misty Copeland's Firebird, Maria Tallchief's Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina, Krystyna Poray Goddu's An Unlikely Ballerina - and it would also work very well with other titles about bookmobiles and traveling libraries - Gloria Houston's Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile, Jeanette Winter's Biblioburro: A True Story from Colombia, Margriet Ruurs' My Librarian Is a Camel: How Books Are Brought to Children Around the World. Recommended to young ballet enthusiasts, and to picture-book readers looking for biographies of dancers and/or people overcoming great challenges to succeed.