The Dancers of Sycamore Street — Julie L'Enfant

Sometimes, looking back at one's life, one can recall the precise end of childhood. For Meredith, that time is 1955, when she is fourteen years old and her quiet, predictable life revolving around high school and ballet classes is upended by a visit from a famous choreographer. In Middleton, a medium-sized city in north Louisiana, his great world of professional ballet is viewed as remote, exotic and not quite respectable. Beautifully capturing a long-ago time and place where mothers were not supposed to work and propriety ruled, The Dancers of Sycamore Street is a poignant, witty and engaging story of a young girl's coming of age.