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Perfect for The Nutcracker 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. The Nutcracker Chronicles, 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. The curtain rises on Ballet El Paso�s production of The Nutcracker, 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. 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.