57 pages • 1 hour read
Laurence YepRibbons
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1997A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “The Recital”
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism.
The novel opens during a production of Tchaikovsky’s celebrated ballet, The Nutcracker. The novel’s 11-year-old protagonist, Robin, watches from the wings as several beginner ballet students struggle in their performance. Robin, a student in the lower advanced class, sympathizes with their anxiety, admitting that on stage, the audience resembles a “multi-headed beast” (2). Inspired to help, Robin whispers to Cecily, a beginner student who’s forgotten the practiced choreography. As Robin mimes the dance, Cecily follows along. Soon, other dancers join her.
However, it’s not long before Cecily falters again. This time, instead of freezing, she and the other beginners improvise. One of the beginners, moving erratically, knocks into the stereo system, damaging the vinyl backtrack. The music begins to skip. Thinking quickly, Robin skips across the stage, borrowing choreography from Swan Lake. She elbows the stereo, and the record resumes. Moving gracefully back on stage, Robin directs the beginners. Amy, Leah, and Thomas, dancers in the upper immediate class, soon join Robin on stage. Together, they organize the beginners and then slip quietly off stage.
During intermission, Robin helps the younger students switch costumes. As the second act commences, Robin grows nervous, anticipating her solo dance as the Morning Butterfly. Right before she’s meant to go on, she’s unable to move, suddenly concerned that she’s forgotten the dance. However, Thomas shoves her from behind, and she stumbles out on stage.
Robin’s fears prove unwarranted: As soon as the music begins, she moves automatically, conditioned by hours of practice. As she looks into the audience—still just a wash of darkness—she hears her parents and younger brother, Ian, quietly applaud. Encouraged, Robin leaps across the stage, forgetting everything but the music. As her mind wanders, Robin imagines that she’s a professional ballerina, performing in a theater. Once the music cuts, Robin stops and faces the audience. After a beat of silence, applause erupts, and Robin savors the moment.
Later, at the end of the show, Robin, Amy, Leah, and Thomas take their place for the curtain call. Grasping hands, they move up to the front of the stage. However, on Thomas’s cue, Amy and Leah suddenly push back, centering Robin in the lights. Robin almost moves away, but Thomas steadies her and assures her she’s earned the special attention. The applause swells, and Robin basks in the praise.
Once offstage, Robin finds her teacher, Madame Oblamov, mourning the damage to her record. Madame Oblamov was once an accomplished dancer, and her office teems with faded photographs and newspaper articles. Realizing Madame Oblamov’s distress, Robin offers to replace the record with a CD, or to dig around in a record store. Grateful, Madame Oblamov pulls Robin into a hug and announces, cryptically, that she’ll miss Robin in class. Robin, utterly confused, feels like she’s been swallowed by darkness.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Debt”
Mom, Dad, and Ian join Robin as she chats with Madame Oblamov. Mom, Elaine, is a public interest attorney who speaks with a slight British accent, left over from her childhood in British-controlled Hong Kong. Dad, Gilbert, is a white documentary filmmaker. Both Mom and Dad greet Madame Oblamov politely. Madame Oblamov begs Mom and Dad to let Robin re-enroll, explaining that Robin is a natural dancer. When Mom and Dad refuse, Madame Oblamov encourages Robin to keep practicing.
Robin, still confused, asks Dad for an explanation. Dad sidesteps the question and prompts Ian to present Robin with their gift: a single rose. As Dad films, Ian hastily recites a congratulatory poem.
Taking the rose, Robin sits down to untie her pointe shoes. Unwinding the ribbons, Robin remembers how Madame had encouraged her to transition to pointe shoes, despite her young age. Dad offers Robin a pair of sneakers, and the family exits the auditorium.
Outside, the dancers gather with their families. Robin watches as Leah chats with Amy and her large Chinese American family. Thomas’s family hasn’t attended, so he coordinates an ice cream trip with the other dancers. Walking over, Robin notices how odd Amy’s makeup looks under the streetlights. Amy invites Robin to join them for ice cream. Robin—who allows herself only one dessert a week—declines, admitting that her odd conversation with Madame has ruined her appetite. When Robin tells her friends that Madame has hinted that Robin will need to leave school, they are shocked and beg her to stay. Chagrined, Robin rejoins her family.
The family walks home to their apartment in the Richmond district, a multicultural hub in the city’s northwest. As she walks, Robin reminisces about her first introduction to ballet: At four, she saw a ballet program on television and was soon enrolled in Madame’s classes. Mom dismissed ballet as a passing interest, but Robin was quickly obsessed.
Back in the present, Robin and her family climb up to their third-floor apartment. After Ian falls asleep, Robin joins Mom and Dad at the kitchen table. Mom reminds Robin that she’s been trying for years to bring over Grandmother from Hong Kong. It’s nearly possible, Mom and Dad explain, so they need to save money. Mom, aiming to make Robin feel guilty, points out that in a few years, the British will cede control of Hong Kong to communist China.
Robin has never met her grandmother. Dad has only met her once, when he and Mom returned to Hong Kong after their wedding. When Robin complains about sacrificing her lessons with Madame, Mom insists she should understand. To better demonstrate the expense, Mom grabs a calculator and totals all the associated costs.
As a last resort, Dad suggests that Mom ask her younger brothers, now independently successful, to pitch in. When Mom refuses, Robin wonders if Nana, Dad’s mom, might be willing to help. Again, Mom shoots down the idea. Briefly, Mom and Dad bicker about ways to earn more money: Dad argues that Mom should abandon her pro bono cases, while Mom suggests that Dad switch from documentary film to television. In the end, both are unwilling to compromise their values for money.
Ultimately, Mom reminds Robin of Grandmother’s past: As a young woman, she had risked everything to flee communist China with her young family—a sacrifice that Mom remembers as The Debt. Finally, Robin accepts that she must quit ballet.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Christmas Cheer”
Without classes, Robin grows restless. Madame has closed the school for Christmas, so Robin phones Amy to commiserate. Amy complains that she already feels out of shape and invites Robin to join her and Thomas at Leah’s for practice.
That afternoon, Robin walks over to Leah’s house. Leah’s family is African American, and she lives with her mom. When Robin arrives, Thomas is eating a bowl of ice cream. He invites his friends to have a taste, but Robin and Leah decline. Leah, self-conscious about her frame, holds herself to a strict diet and never eats dessert. Robin notices that Leah, chronically undernourished, has bags under her eyes.
Leah shows the group an early Christmas present: her very own ballet studio, installed upstairs. When the group pesters Robin about returning to class, she shrugs and promises that she’ll keep in shape. The group chooses a track and practices together. Robin forces herself to concentrate, recognizing ballet as its own language. Robin hopes that she’ll be able to return to class soon.
Christmas proves disappointing for Robin and her family. Instead of toys from Toys “R” Us, Ian receives a set of plastic toy soldiers from China. Robin asks for season tickets to the San Francisco Ballet but receives a single ticket to The Nutcracker instead. Though the seat is in a prime location, Robin hates the gift.
Robin gives Mom a potholder and Dad a crocheted coaster. Dad, colorblind, can’t recognize the colors, so Mom laughingly describes them. After breakfast, Robin calls Nana, who’s given her and Ian 20 dollars each. Robin thanks Nana, and Nana compliments her on her recent solo.
Afterward, Robin calls Thomas, knowing that he’ll be home. Thomas lives with his mother, and they rarely seem to leave the house. Thomas and Robin commiserate over a lousy Christmas, and Thomas offers to bring over Robin’s gift: a cassette tape that he, Amy, and Leah have created. When Thomas arrives, he doesn’t come in, too proud to admit his poor family life. In exchange for the tape, Robin offers Thomas the Nutcracker ticket, insisting that he, Amy, and Leah flip for it. Later, Robin tears into her gift. Her friends have included a card with drawings of themselves as blimps. As Robin looks over the track list, she recognizes her favorite songs.
That day, Robin and her family meet up with Mom’s younger brothers, Georgie and Eddy, and their children. Robin’s cousins show off their shiny new toys. Once back home, Robin asks Mom when she can return to ballet. Mom promises that they’ll discuss it after Grandmother arrives. Revisiting a sore subject, Dad asks why Mom’s brothers can’t contribute. Though Mom explains that she’s enjoyed more advantages than her brothers, Dad reminds her that she’s brought them to America and funded their education. Unmoved, Mom still refuses to consider it. She mentions that Ian has offered her the 20 dollars that he received from Nana, and she pressures Robin to do the same. Defeated, Robin hands over the money.
Alone in her room, Robin looks sadly at the drawing of her friends. Resolving to stay fit, Robin begins to practice in the building garage, holding onto a pipe as a makeshift barre. Moving along to the cassette tape, Robin imagines Madame’s voice. Each time she makes a mistake, Robin forces herself to repeat the step over and over.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
In this first section of chapters, Laurence Yep characterizes dance as an art form, noting its similarity to fantasy; indeed, as Robin dances, she’s initiated into a better, more magical world. However, Yep is careful to qualify dance’s potential for escapism: The real world still exists, and its harsh, unglamorous truths complicate Robin’s ballet career. It’s through this juxtaposition that Yep introduces the novel’s defining conflict: Robin must quit dance in the wake of financial hardship.
The novel opens with an amateur production of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Robin, thrilled to participate, watches reverently from the wings. She awaits her performance as the Morning Butterfly, a routine that will ultimately emerge as a symbol of Robin’s character development. As Robin’s first-person narration unfolds, the narrative is imbued with her thoughts, feelings, anxieties, and—most importantly—her unparalleled passion for dance. Once on center stage herself, Robin explains dance’s central attraction: Almost like magic, it allows her to separate from herself and enter, instead, a beautiful fantasy. The audience, just beyond the footlights, becomes a monster-like figure; pleased with her solo performance, Robin triumphantly decides that “[she] had tamed that multi-headed creature” (7). This hyperbolic description lends the scene an almost mythological quality: Robin, the valiant hero, slays the beast and lives happily ever after. This sense of fantasy is repeated, too, as Robin further loses herself in her performance. As she dances, she forgets her surroundings, concentrated only on “[her] body and the music” (8), and suddenly imagines that she’s performing in a “real theater” with a “real ballet company” (7). Even her fellow performers are initiated into this fantasy world. For instance, Robin introduces her friends according to their characters: Leah is “the head Snow Flake” (4), Thomas Mother Goose, Amy a Dresden doll, and a group of beginners “mice and soldiers” (3). In addressing her friends thus, Robin blurs the line between performer and character, suggesting their identities are interchangeable. Basking in this sense of possibility, Robin decides that “there was nothing like dance when everything went right” (8).
However, dance does not exist in a vacuum and instead contends with a less glamorous reality. Almost immediately after the performance ends, Robin, joining her family, swaps her pointe shoes for sneakers. To Robin, the sneakers appear “ugly and clumsy,” and as she trudges along, she feels like she’s grown “hooves” (15). In transitioning to sneakers, Robin metaphorically shifts from the fantasy of dance to the awkward plainness of reality. Even the makeup and costumes—dazzling on stage—have lost their shine: Amy’s makeup looks “very garish” (17) under the streetlights, and Robin’s butterfly costume becomes merely “sequins and crinoline again” (15). Similarly, on the stage, Robin had enjoyed a fantasy of power: She had organized the beginners, tamed the audience, and imagined herself a soloist in a crowded theater. However, here, without the “magic of performance” (17) to embolden her, Robin is notably powerless. For instance, when Robin asks Dad about Madame’s cryptic reference to her leaving dance, he sidesteps her question, urging her instead to accept Ian’s rose. And later, outside the auditorium, Mom dismisses Robin’s concern with a simple “not here, Robin, darling” (18). Without dance to encourage both her imagination and sense of self-grandeur, Robin emerges as a distinctly vulnerable character: She’s young, confused, and seemingly without a champion.
Indeed, Mom and Dad often struggle to sympathize with dance and its promise of fantasy; instead, they think realistically and encourage Robin toward a similar mindset. For instance, when Robin practices her ballet steps in the supermarket, Mom reminds her of their surroundings and “begs me to walk regularly” (20). And similarly, when they return home from the recital, Mom carefully totals Robin’s dance expenses, like “tuition, leotard, shoes” (23). Here, as she breaks down its associated costs, Mom recharacterizes dance as less of a creative passion and more of a financial burden; almost too quickly, the magic of dance is reduced to digits in a calculator.
This juxtaposition between dance and reality paves the way for the novel’s central dilemma: Robin will have to forfeit her dance lessons so that Mom and Dad can afford to fund Grandmother’s immigration from Hong Kong, introducing the theme of Sacrificing for a Greater Good. Indeed, going forward, Robin’s life becomes one of hard lessons: She’s given a disappointing Christmas present, forced to forfeit her money from Nana, and driven to practice in a lower-level garage—a makeshift solution that introduces the theme of Responding Creatively to Limitations. Without dance and its promise of escapism, Robin essentially enters the real world, an initiation that will ultimately guide her toward a life-changing understanding.
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