Rock Dancer is a poignant and moving story that tells the story of how fourteen year old elite gymnast, Leah Norfolk, is able to come to terms with herself after her best friend, Morgan, fell from an apparatus while she was the catcher. Leah is completely traumatised by what happened and because of Morgan’s mother’s attitude, she is not able to entirely discount the idea that perhaps she allowed her friend to fall deliberately so that she could gain the final berth in the Olympic Team.

Leah has just moved to a new place and the story is set on a rock climbing expedition that is part of a school camp at a beautiful national park. It is here, amongst a group of ordinary children her own age, that Leah is gradually able to adjust and face up to being with herself.

The end of the story brings a satisfactory closure to the whole affair, and we know Leah will be able to start living again.

We watch Leah’s progress from a totally traumatised, vulnerable person who feels she is responsible for her best friend’s injury to gradually emerge through different experiences to face up to her new life with a positive attitude.

In the course of the novel, the reader learns a lot about the others on the camp and what makes them behave as they do.

Bronwyn Blake is a Central Victorian writer, who lives on a bush property near the historic gold-rush town of Maldon. Bronwyn has worked as a teacher and in a number of other fields including fine arts and management. She has lived in many of the world’s wild places, including Alaska, but the Australian bush remains her first love. Her first young adult novel, Find me a River, was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book in 2002.