Book Review: No Ballet Shoes In Syria by Catherine Bruton

‘No Ballet Shoes In Syria’ by Catherine Bruton was released in 2019. It was her seventh attributed release.

This is a beautiful children’s book which explores the universal language of dance and the bonds you can forge through the craft. When eleven-year-old Aya arrives in Manchester, having fled her home in Aleppo with her Mumma and baby brother Moosa, she struggles to navigate the world around her, from still learning conversational English, and needing to translate for her Mumma, to having childcare responsibilities because of Mumma’s ill health, to simply missing her father, she has a lot on her plate. Then she stumbles upon the ballet studio above the community centre offering aid to the asylum seekers in the area.

Aya, who was a keen dancer before she fled Syria, was transfixed by the dancers in the class, and quickly befriends extroverted Dotty, and her classmates, and manages, through the kindness of Miss Helena and her daughter Miss Sylvie, to join the class and receive the same opportunities as the other talented dancers, Her skills and poise are like muscle memory, and despite having missed the initial preliminary auditions, Aya is allowed the opportunity audition for the Royal Northern Dance School. All while navigating the daunting reality of her family’s original claim for asylum being rejected, and their need to appeal, lest the family be deported.

This book was so incredibly powerful, and tells a clear story of pain and anguish, but also of people. There is a harsh truth of desensitisation among the general population of the UK. There are so many breaking news stories about asylum seekers fleeing war-torn countries that their identities are erased. But Aya is a little girl, just a little eleven year old girl who wants to be a ballerina. She is no different from any other little girl in the ballet class. She isn’t a statistic. Just like every refugee is a person.

This book ought to be in every classroom within the target age demographic. It tells a raw, evocative and accessible story, and the connection between Miss Helena’s escape from Prague during WWII and Aya’s from Aleppo. When Miss Helena told her story, I welled up. It was so very sad, knowing that war continues on, and hearing about how similar Aya and Miss Helena’s lives were, two girls whose lives had been ravaged by war, and families torn apart and dreams snatched away from them. I highly recommend it.