Book excerpt: Meet the Sugar Plum Ballerinas At the Nutcracker School of Ballet in Harlem, young dancers learn to chassé, plié, and jeté with their Sugar Plum Sisters--but things don't always go to plan! As the girls encounter challenges both on and off stage, they'll need the support of their classmates to carry them through with aplomb. Readers will applaud the first two books in this beloved, New York Times best-selling series celebrating friendship, creativity, and most of all, dance. Plum FantasticAlexandrea Petrakova Johnson does not want to be a beautiful ballerina, and she does not want to leave her friends in Apple Creek. It's hard enough when her ballet-crazy mother moves the family to Harlem, but when Al is chosen to star in the Nutcracker School of Ballet's big recital, she'll have to contend with her terrible dancing and a rotten case of stage fright! Can her new classmates help her find her inner Sugar Plum Fairy? Toeshoe TroubleBrenda Black prides herself on her logical and orderly mind. She studies anatomy books and idolizes Leonardo da Vinci. Things go haywire, though, when her spoiled cousin Tiffany comes to visit. Sick and tired of Tiffany's bragging, Brenda snaps and says she owns an autographed pair of famous toe shoes. It's a ballet slipper-y slope as the lie gets out of hand, and she'll need her Sugar Plum Sisters to help get her back en pointe!