"When she was only five years old, her parents took her to see the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Raven perched on her crushed velvet seat, heard the tympani, and cried with delight even before the curtain lifted. From that moment on, her passion for dance only grew stronger. No black ballerina had ever danced with a major American touring troupe before. Raven would be the first. All Raven Wilkinson wanted to do was dance. On Raven's ninth birthday, her uncle gifted her with ballet lessons, and she completely fell in love with dance. While she was a student at Columbia University, Raven auditioned for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and was finally accepted on her third try, even after being told she couldn't dance with them because of her skin color. She encountered racism in her travels while on tour, but the applause, alongside the opportunity to dance, made all the hardship worth it. She would later dance for royalty with the Dutch National Ballet and regularly performed with the New York City Opera until she was fifty. This beautiful picture book tells the uplifting story of the first African American ballerina to ever dance with a major American touring troupe and how she became a huge inspiration for Misty Copeland. Theodore's unique, heavy line style of illustration brings a deeper level of fluidity and life to the work"-- Provided by publisher.