I first wrote Today I Went to Dance Class for a college creative writing class, before Rebekah was born. I based the story on the children I taught in dance class, and my professor encouraged me to try to publish it.

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Years later, when Rebekah was taking dance lessons, I redrew the illustrations and based the main character on her. Her sister Rochelle found her way into the book, too. You can spot her as the dark-haired dancer on the far right in the illustration above. What began as a story about my dance students became a way to remember my own girls at that age.