06/07/2026
Olivia Book was born with a congenital limb difference -- her right arm ends just above the elbow and is significantly smaller than her left, with limited mobility. In February, the 23-year-old ballerina, pictured here in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," was promoted to the corps de ballet at Ballet West in Salt Lake City, making her one of the first professional ballerinas with a limb difference. "I sometimes can't believe it," she said.
The corps de ballet is built on sameness. The whole task is to move as one -- identical lines, identical timing, a single body multiplied across the stage. Olivia has spent her life learning to meet that standard with a body that doesn't match it. During a 2024 production of "Swan Lake," a practiced eye could still find her among the rows of swans -- not because she broke the line, but because of how cleanly she met it: the precision in her footwork, the quiet control in how she carried her upper body.
Olivia grew up in Grimsby, Ontario. She started dancing at 3 and got serious about ballet when she received her first pointe shoes at 12. She loved the challenge -- and the elegance. "I just loved how elegant and graceful they looked, and I knew it was hard work, but they made it look so easy, and I really wanted to be like that," she said. But for years, she wasn't sure the dream was possible. "There was always that little voice in my head that didn't know if it would ever be possible to be a professional," she said, "but I loved continuing to work at ballet."
What she calls her "little arm" forced her to rely on her left arm for nearly everything -- including, eventually, ballet itself. As a girl she could grip the barre with her right hand, but as she grew, she no longer could, and she learned to do barre work as though she were already in the center of the room, balancing on her own.
Her childhood teacher had a small barre built at a height her right arm could reach; later, Olivia and her father designed an attachment that could be secured to any barre, which she carried on the plane when she moved to Utah. Unable to use her right arm to steady her turns and balances the way other dancers do, she learned to rely on her back muscles instead -- a habit that became one of her strengths. Turns, she says, are now among her favorite things to do.
She was discovered in 2018, when Ballet West's artistic director, Adam Sklute, was judging a competition in Toronto. Some of the judges suggested giving her a special award. "I said, 'Well, I'm not sure we need to give her a special award. Let's see how she does in the competition,'" Sklute recalled. "And when the scores came out, she scored quite high."
He offered her a place at the company's school on the spot. Olivia trained at the Ballet West Academy beginning in 2019, spent two years as a student, two as a company trainee, and three in the second company, Ballet West II, before this year's promotion. "She's hard working, she's smart, and she has a positive attitude," Sklute said. "You can't ask for anything more in a company member."
Olivia is careful not to let her difference define her, and she's clear-eyed that her story is not mainly one of hardship. "I've been really fortunate not to have had a lot of barriers," she said. "For the most part, I feel like it was in my own head, growing up, and not coming from the people around me."
Most of her challenges, she says, have simply been about making ballet technique work for her body -- balancing with one smaller arm, dancing pas de deux with only one hand as the connection point with her partner. When a recent "Nutcracker" role called for her to grasp a hanging prop with her right hand, her solution was simple: she lifted her left arm across and overhead and held it that way, without anyone needing to rewrite the steps for her. "I never want to have to change the choreography too much," she said. "I always want to find that balance where I can honor the choreography and still be a part of it."
Her promotion has placed her in the spotlight in a new way, and with it a new weight. Bradford Chin, an assistant professor of dance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose work examines dance and disability, says Olivia's rise could reshape how the art form thinks about bodies. "It allows us to question how we conceptualize what a healthy body looks like," he said, "and how we're approaching the idea of what makes a qualified dancer."
Long before the promotion, other dancers had already started looking to her. "I've met so many other dancers who have limb differences," she said, "and when they say they look up to me or I inspire them to keep going or chase their dreams, it means so much to me."
Looking forward, Olivia dreams of dancing the canon's great soloist and principal roles. But for now, the joy she finds onstage is in something quieter -- the camaraderie of moving as one with everyone around her. She thinks back to that run of "Swan Lake." "That was really a highlight for me -- like 'Wow, I'm onstage being a ballerina,'" she said. "Everyone's dancing the same and very much in unison, so for me to be a part of that group was just really special."
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For picture books celebrating Mighty Girls who love to dance, visit our blog post "Dancing Her Heart Out: 20 Picture Books About Mighty Girls Who Love to Dance," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12378
For a heartwarming and hilarious middle grade novel about a girl who thrives despite her "lack of armage," we highly recommend "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus" for ages 9 to 13 (https://www.amightygirl.com/insignificant-events-in-the-life-of-a-cactus) and its sequel, "Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus" (https://www.amightygirl.com/momentous-events-in-the-life-of-a-cactus)
This beloved novel has also been adapted into a fun chapter book series starring Aven, an armless Mighty Girl who loves solving mysteries, which begins with "Aven Green, Sleuthing Machine" for ages 6 to 9 at https://www.amightygirl.com/aven-green-sleuthing-machine
For an inspiring memoir by Jordan Reeves, a Mighty Girl growing up with a limb difference, we recommend "Born Just Right" for ages 8 to 11 at https://www.amightygirl.com/born-just-right
There are also several fantastic books about Mighty Girls who pursue their dreams after leg amputations: "Rescue and Jessica" for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/rescue-and-jessica), “The Running Dream” for ages 12 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-running-dream), and “A Time To Dance” for ages 13 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/a-time-to-dance)
For more books that encourage understanding and acceptance of people with disabilities of all varieties, visit our blog post "Many Ways To Be Mighty: 25 Books Starring Mighty Girls with Disabilities" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12992
To read a new article about her in The New York Times, visit https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/arts/dance/olivia-book-ballet-west-limb-difference.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oFA.0V6Y.mZBq_28JcZxo&smid=url-share
Photo by Lauren Wattenburg
