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Brandy Colbert is the author of POINTE, winner of the 2014 Cybils Award for young adult fiction, and was named book of 2014 by Publishers Weekly. Her next book LITTLE & LION will be published by Little, Brown in spring 2017.

POINTE was the fourth novel Brandy wrote. She knew it was almost there because she really started caring about the characters.

It really helps to create a backstory for your supporting characters, though you don't need as much as you have for your main character, but they too need a story. Be careful of stereotype with your supporting characters.

Watching TV is a great way to learn about great dialogue. While watching it's helpful to assess what people do with their hands and body language. Also, close your eyes and listen to what their voice alone sounds like.

Do your characters use certain words or slang (but also be careful of these)?

Empathy is huge. Give readers a reason to care about your characters.

What Brandy worked on most when writing POINTE: detail, detail, detail, and body language. She wanted to allow the reader to imagine the characters as much as possible without giving to much detail, but Brandy's editor was often asking: Where is she? and Where are you characters on the page? She had to work on this.

Supporting characters Brandy loves (from contemporary, realistic):

The Best Friend
A Sense of the Infinite by Hilary T. Smith

Love Interest
Roomies by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando
Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick

Siblings
P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia
Making Pretty by Corey Ann Haydu

Big Groups
The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma
This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Characters That Don't Appear on the Page
Hold Still by Nina LaCour

Parents
Since You Asked by Maurene Goo

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Miranda Paul moderates the "Diversity in Children's Books: Challenges and Solutions" panel, (from left to right) Nicola Yoon, Varian Johnson, Brandy Colbert and Joe Cepeda.

(I.W. Gregorio was unable to attend.)

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Pointe Brandy Colbert

Theo is a ballet dancer, one with a real shot at going pro. She’s startled the day a guy from school--who she mainly knows as a pot dealer-- shows up as the new pianist at her studio. Then she goes home and sees that her best friend--the one who was kidnapped 4 years ago and presumed dead--has been found.

There’s a lot going on here--when Donovan comes home, Theo has to deal a lot with what was going on in her life when he disappeared. Then she sees a picture of the man who’s been arrested for kidnapping Donovan. Chris Fenner is 30, but when Theo knew him, he said he was 18 and his name was Trent. She was 13 and he was her boyfriend and they were in love.

As Theo gears up for her summer intensive auditions, the things that can lead her pro, she must confront some very large demons. Does she tell what she knows about the man who took Donovan? Does she risk being branded “That Girl” forever, knowing that any ballet company in their right mind will pass on her because of it?

After Donovan and Trent left, Theo stopped eating. Now they’re back, she’s stopped again.

How does she navigate the town gossip and other student’s reactions and theories when Donovan returns?

Donovan and Trent were friends--did Donovan want to go?

There’s a lot going on here, but it works really, really well. I love that ballet is Theo’s life, but it’s not the focus of this novel. I appreciated that her eating issues weren’t about ballet. She uses ballet as way to keep herself “in check” with her dieting, but it’s obviously really about controlling something when she can’t control the other things in her life. It’s not the “you’re too fat and have to lose weight” thing that we so often see in ballet novels.

There is sex and drug use and sometimes there are consequences and sometimes there aren’t. It was all realistically done.

There are heavy things going on, but Colbert keeps all the issues and plot lines balanced and you know that Theo should just tell what she knows, but you believe her reasons for not wanting to. The back and forth narrative as Theo tries to piece together Donovan’s disappearance with his reappearance and how Theo reveals information is so well crafted. I don’t want to say Theo’s unreliable, but there are (major) pieces she holds back for awhile. It adds new layers to the stories and avoids there “this is what happened then” massive info-dump.

ALSO. Can I just say how much I love that there are really good adults in this novel? With the obvious exception of the Chris/Trent aside, most of the adults in Theo’s life--her parents, her teachers, etc, are really good adults. They’re there for Theo and also hold her accountable for her actions without being horrible. And as an adult reader, I knew she could trust them, but I also totally understood why Theo wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her.

You guys… so good and powerful. I’m going to be thinking on this one for a long, long, long time.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Pointe by Brandy Colbert. G.P. Putnam's Sons, an Imprint of Penguin Group (USA). 2014. Reviewed from ARC.

The Plot: Theo's life is in a good place. Some would say a very good place. She's one of the top ballet dancers in her class. She has good friends and a boy who is interested in her. The heartache and problems of the past -- the breakup with her first love, her best friend disappearing and feared dead, her parents' overreaction to Theo's resulting depression and eating issues -- are in the past.

The past comes back, fast and furious.

Donovan is found. Alive. It's been four years and Donovan is alive and coming home. Relief and joy and tinged with something else: fear.

Because Theo recognizes the face of Donovan's kidnapper. She knew him by a different name, but she knew him.

He was the boy she loved, the person who broke her heart when he left her. It's the same man.

Everything Theo thought she knew, about Donovan, about her old boyfriend, about herself, is about to be turned inside out. At least she still has ballet, but how long will that last, when people find out?

The Good: The Good? Everything. Everything is good.

Theo is such a complex, amazing, interesting young woman.

Readers of this blog may remember, I like to keep notes as I read -- I sketch family trees and timelines, jot down ages and names. As I'm sketching this out while reading Pointe, I realize what Theo does not. Oh, I also realize it because I'm old, a grown up, I'm not a teenager. When Theo was with her first love, Trent, the person she loves and believes was wonderful, Theo was thirteen. And Trent was eighteen.

Theo was crushed when Trent disappeared on her, and had few people to confide in because there were so few people who knew about Theo and Trent. Donovan was the only person, actually, who knew. Now that Donovan has been found, Theo learns not just that Donovan was with Trent, but that Trent's real name is Christopher. And that he's thirty. Which means that not only did he lie to her about his name, he also lied about his age: instead of being eighteen, he was twenty-six. And she was thirteen.

And here is one reason I just flat out adored Theo: through all this, she's thinking "what about me" and "what does this mean to me." She dances around what all this means to Donovan, wondering mostly if Donovan ran away with Christopher and voluntarily stayed with him.

Part of what I loved about Pointe was how long it takes Theo to come to the place that you, the reader, does.

What Theo had wasn't love; it never was. But her love for Trent (well, Christopher) was such a part of Theo's identity, that she just cannot look at the facts, the numbers -- she has to deal with the emotions. Her love. And because she has to believe that what she had was real, when she looks at Donovan she believes about him what she believes about herself: that the then-thirteen year old Donovan had a choice, a choice about being with and staying with Christopher.

Donovan has been silent since his return home, not leaving his house, not talking to anyone, including Theo. No one knows Theo's secret. And part of Theo is very happy -- and very relieved -- at Donovan's silence.

From the outside, Theo looks put together and strong. You'd have to be, to become such a talented dancer. Pointe is clear about the dedication it takes to reach the place that Theo is now at. The reality? Then, she was a thirteen year old girl swayed by the attentions of an older boy, wanting to be loved, wanting to make him happy. Now, it turns out, is not that much better. Hosea, the boy she likes, is her age, goes to her school, but, in addition to being the local drug dealer, is dating someone else.

Theo doesn't quite realize the parallels between the two loves of her life. Oh, the present boy is age-appropriate and also power-appropriate. They are equals. Which means that what the present relationship shows the reader is what Theo thinks is mutual affection and respect and love; what she'll put up in order to get what she thinks is love; what she'll settle for.

As you can see from all those paragraphs, what intrigues me the most about Pointe is the relationships and emotional journey of Theo. There is so much more! Hosea, for example, is a fully realized character, and may be the nicest, sweetest, drug dealer cheater in book history. I so understood why Theo likes him and wants him, even as I realized that it was much less clear cut than Theo believes.

Theo is one of the only black kids in her dance class, in her school, in her neighborhood. Donovan was only of the others. This matters, in that it shows her relationship with her peers. What it means when the topic of segregation comes up in school, and she is asked to give examples of what that meant to her family.

And of course this is a mystery: what happened to Donovan? What, if anything, should Theo say about what she knows? And it's a story about being passionate about something as all-consuming and physical as ballet.  And it's about friendship, I haven't even mentioned Theo's two best friends, Sara-Kate and Phil. Or Theo and eating, and what she eats and why, and how that is part of who Theo is rather than the only thing.

Because this is such an elegant, complex book this is one of my Favorite Books Read in 2014.

Other reviews: Stacked; Slate Breakers; Los Angeles Review of Books.

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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

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