Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina
    Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina
    Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina
    Audiobook5 hours

    Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina

    Written by Elaine Deprince and Michaela DePrince

    Narrated by Allyson Johnson

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Michaela DePrince was known as girl no. 27 at the orphanage, where she was abandoned at a young age and tormented as a "devil child" for a skin condition that makes her skin appear spotted. But it was at the orphanage that Michaela would find a picture of a beautiful ballerina en pointe that would help change the course of her life.

    At the age of four, Michaela was adopted by an American family, who encouraged her love of dancing and enrolled her in classes. She went on to study at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at the American Ballet Theatre and now dances for the Dutch National Ballet.

    In this engaging, moving, and unforgettable memoir, Michaela shares her dramatic journey from an orphan in West Africa to becoming one of ballet's most exciting rising stars.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 13, 2015
    ISBN9781494588229
    Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina

    Related to Taking Flight

    Related audiobooks

    YA Biography & Autobiography For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Pam Ayres: ‘I Inherited A Love Of English From My Mother’

      Aug 5, 2023

      It’s important to be yourself in life. Don’t think you have to adapt according to the people or situation you’re in. It’s perfectly all right to be exactly who you are, to like what you like. That’s a lesson it took me a long time to learn. I grew up

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Dance Champion of Bapsfontein

      Aug 27, 2018

      Bapsfontein is a peculiar place. In the era before highways, the route we’d take to Pretoria from Springs, where I grew up, was always via Bapsfontein. There are two main reasons this small town rooted itself in my consciousness. First, it–and specif

      5 min read

    • Article

      Giving Up Paradise: Lies, high heels, and piety.

      Jun 13, 2013

      For millions of refugees, life is nothing if not uncertain. They come to a new world with two purposes: escaping one set of realities, and building a new set. This story is about a family who fled Somalia during the Civil War of the 1990s. They settl

      13 min read

    • Article

      Count Your Chickens

      Mar 5, 2018

      Count Your Chickens
      5 min read

    • Article

      Shanda

      Jan 1, 2024

      Shanda
      13 min read

    • Article

      Mother Tongue

      Feb 24, 2021

      Mother Tongue
      12 min read

    • Article

      Yellow Summer Rain

      May 19, 2022

      Yellow Summer Rain
      23 min read

    • Article

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia

      Aug 26, 2022

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia
      5 min read

    • Article

      This Back Is a Familiar Back

      May 1, 2023

      This Back Is a Familiar Back
      8 min read

    • Article

      I Was Supposed To Be A Tragedy.

      Apr 16, 2021

      I am the last born of four daughters in an Indian family, which obviously means my birth was a tragedy. Well, at least for those who congratulated my mother with, ‘I’m so sorry,’ or, ‘Better luck next time,’ or who said things amongst themselves like

      6 min read

    • Article

      Robin Abcarian: Parenting A Child Again Is A Challenge, A Joy And A Lesson About Who Comes First

      May 2, 2019

      It's not very often that you get a chance to relive something as profound as parenting a young child, but quite out of the blue four months ago, a little girl I love came to live with me. She is a close relative, and the circumstances that brought he

      4 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Wolf

      Nov 6, 2018

      The Wolf
      12 min read

    • Article

      Poetry And Emotion

      May 3, 2023

      What are your earliest childhood holiday memories? I'm one of six kids and Dad worked for the electricity board. We lived in a council house, so there was very little money, but there would be day trips to Weymouth. When I was older, we went on a car

      3 min read

    • Article

      Every CLOUD

      Aug 31, 2022

      Every CLOUD
      6 min read

    • Article

      Princess Bari

      Apr 15, 2019

      Princess Bari
      6 min read

    • Article

      Suranne Jones

      May 22, 2023

      Suranne Jones
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Taking Flight

    4.5/5

    58 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Her story is very inspiring. I really enjoyed listening to it! She’s a testament to the power of strength, love, sharing, and dedication to your chosen field.
    • 5/5
      This is a beautiful and inspirational story. Michaela Deprince’s passion is astounding.
    • 5/5
      I was really moved by Michaela DePrince's story as shown in the documentary, First Position. It's been wonderful watching her career take off with her move to HET National Ballet Company. I kept my eye on the American release date for this book and bought it the day it was released. I had a few hours yesterday so I sat down and read it cover to cover. It's heart wrenching and victorious. Her struggle in Sierra Leone as little more than a baby to discovering what it is to be a minority in a mixed family in the United States and finally what it means to break barriers of color in the professional ballet world. Miss DePrince is much to be admired and this book reveals a young lady still figuring it out. I hope all the best for her and I continue to watch her wonderful career as a dancer unfold.

      Read the book and then pass it on.
    • 4/5
      The memoir is easily my favorite genre - I find the lives of other people endlessly fascinating. Some stories seem to stay with me long after I’ve turned the last page. “Taking Flight” is one of those stories. To say that Michaela DePrince is an extraordinary young woman feels somehow inadequate, there don’t seem to be adjectives strong enough to capture the strength, courage, and determination that is revealed in her story.Michaela, born in war-torn Sierra Leone, was an only child. She lost her father in a rebel attack where he worked in a diamond mine, and her mother died only months later due to an untreated illness. At only three years old she found herself alone in the world and living in an orphanage after her only relative, an uncle, rejected her. At the orphanage she wasn’t called by name but by number. There was very little food and no medical care. She quickly learned to adapt to this situation. For a small child to be able to maintain her sense of self and any level of personal value is truly remarkable.Michaela was one of the fortunate orphans to be adopted. Upon arrival in the United States she was diagnosed with a severe case of tonsillitis, “The doctor told my mother that if I had remained in Africa another day or two, the infection would have spread through my body, causing sepsis. I surely would have died.” Michaela’s parents saw not only to her basic needs but also supported and encouraged her intellectual, athletic and artistic growth - especially her love of ballet. Michaela’s passion for dance and her talent promise a bright future. Although, she is faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. She rises above the limitations others try to place on her again and again. To read this compelling story of her journey through the world of professional ballet is to be inspired.Note: Michaela DePrince is one of six dancers featured in the documentary “First Position”
    • 4/5
      This is a remarkable story - not only rags to riches, but starving to fed, abused to loved, endangered to safe. Michaela DePrince, born in Sierra Leone, war orphan and refugee, finds a ballet magazine at her orphanage and that treasure changes the entire trajectory of her life. She is adopted and adored by a white American family that has lost three hemophiliac sons to HIV. Her parents adopt four more West African daughters. They do everything in their power to make the girls feel secure, and yet all five are haunted by "debils", the child soldiers who raped and killed. Every loud male voice sends them fleeing. And yet they become swimming champions, ballerinas, and musicians.Michaela also has vitiglio, a skin condition that causes loss of skin color in blotches. Happily, this does not prevent her from dancing with the ART, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and currently in the Dutch National Company. In a world where appearance is everything, where parents of white ballet students claim that her body is too "athletic" for ballet, she triumphs. Michaela and Misty Copeland, another black ballerina, have recently shared their inspiring stories. Hopefully, classical ballet will seek out and promote black female dancers (black males are more plentiful in these companies) to be their swans, Dew Drop fairies, and firebirds!