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Starring Prima! The Mouse of the Ballet Jolie
Jacquelyne Mitchard
Illustrated by Tricia Tusa
Fiction
Ages 8 to 12
HarperCollins, 2004, 0-06-057356-2
 From the day that she is born under the lid of the grand piano in the Ballet Jolie in New York City, it is obvious to all that Prima is different from her brothers and sisters. That very first day she says “I was born to dance” and her startled mother knows that this little daughter is going to be an “artist mouse,” a mouse destined for great things. Unfortunately on the day when Prima chooses her name she also decides that she is going to be a star and she makes a point of telling everyone as much. Little does everyone know how much of a “hullabaloo” her ambition is going to cause.
  Prima does indeed turn out to be a superb dancer who can do very advanced and complicated steps which astound her family and friends. Soon she is performing in ballets and getting lead roles simply because she is the best mouse for the parts. And yet this is not enough for Prima. Performing for her own kind is not enough for Prima. She wants to perform for humans as well. So she and her brother Pan try to arrange things so she can be seen by a human audience as well. The result is a near disaster and of course Prima gets into terrible trouble with her parents who are their wits end as to what they should do with their willful daughter. Why can’t she be content performing for mice?
  Then Prima meets Kristen Brown, the daughter of a human prima ballerina and the two girls become fast friends. Could it be that these two very different girls, none human, one mouse, can help one another? Can Kristen give Prima the attention and experiences that she is looking for and can Prima give the lonely human girl the friendship and love that she badly needs?
  This delightful, often funny, and quite irresistible story will surely do wonders for human/mouse relations. Readers will discovers all kinds of things that they never knew about mouse kind and without a doubt they will never look at a mouse (or a cat) in the same way again.
  Written with great humor, pathos, and sympathy for girls with big dreams, and for lonely girls, this book is a complete charmer.

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