Marie lives to dance. She dreams of becoming a ballerina, but without a sponsor, she knows she will grow up and raise a family, just like her mother. Why can't she be as excited about this future as her friend Joelle?

Ten-year-old Marie has been given a rare opportunity to dance at the Paris Opera, but her success is marred by the jealousy of her fellow dancers and the poverty she sees around her in pre-Revolutionary Paris

Marie must come up with a plan to save her cousin from being sent away to work in a story set against the turbulent backdrop of late-eighteenth-century Paris. Original.