Ballet Cat: The Totally Secret Secret by Bob Shea (review)

Sparkle Pony wants to make crafts or play checkers or have a lemonade stand, but Ballet Cat finds fault with each suggestion because none of them work well with her preferred activity, ballet. Sparkle Pony grudgingly gives in but finally comes clean with his secret secret: “Sometimes I don’t want to play ballet!” She reveals that she loves him even more than ballet, and the final illustration finds the friends happily playing checkers amidst glasses of lemonade and craft supplies. While the basic idea here is not a new one, this is a perennial kid conflict, and the honesty and support that Sparkle Pony and Ballet Cat give each other provide an appropriate model. The story is told entirely in dialogue, and Shea injects his own brand of humor into the text (“Is the secret that you are not so great at ballet? That is not a very secret secret, Sparkles”); additionally, the font size is effectively varied to indicate emotion, with smaller print used in moments of worry or sarcastic acquiescence and larger print indicating excitement or frustration. Shea’s illustrations, with childlike draftsmanship in bold, crayon-like outlines and candy hues of pink, purple, turquoise, and bright green, humorously underscore the emotional terrain. The vocabulary and somewhat lengthier text make this a step up from Willems’ Elephant & Piggie series in terms of difficulty, and primary-grade readers ready for that challenge will take to this like Ballet Cat to a pirouette.