Nutcracker Chronicles

<b>Perfect for <i>The Nutcracker </i>holiday market and fans of work/life balance books this memoir of a ballet dancer-turned-literary curator shares the real-life journey of a dancer wife and mother.</b> <p/><i>The Nutcracker Chronicles</i> a modern twist on the beloved holiday ballet intertwines the story of Clara and her nutcracker prince with the true-life stories that unfold backstage. <p/>The curtain rises on Ballet El Paso's production of <i>The Nutcracker</i> where young Janine Kovac is cast as Fritz the boy who breaks the nutcracker. Her director is Ingeborg Heuser a German woman who once performed for Hitler and who peppers her teaching with insults like Why can't you just dance like a pretty girl? At least it's better than You look like a cow on ice skates which is what the other girls hear daily. <p/>Onstage Janine wins the battle and embarks on a voyage through a snowy forest to the Land of the Sweets where she serves as spectator to a beautiful dance. She also travels offstage leaving El Paso to study at San Francisco Ballet before landing a job in Iceland and returning to California where she rises through the ranks from soldier to snowflake to candy soloist. Eventually however she is relegated to watching other people dance--her husband her children her students--and her claim to the spotlight is replaced by the quest to find joy in her new roles.