The Nutcracker is a ballet about a girl, a wooden toy, and one strange Christmas Eve. Nobody speaks in a ballet, so a child who knows the story before the show can follow every scene. This retelling takes about five minutes to read aloud. It follows the version most ballet companies dance.
The story to read aloud
Christmas Eve
It is Christmas Eve, and snow is falling. Clara and her brother, Fritz, wait at the door of the big room. Their parents open it at last. A tall tree stands inside, covered in candles. Friends and cousins arrive for a party. The children march, dance, and play.
The gift
Then the clock chimes, and a man in a dark cloak walks in. He is Clara’s godfather, Drosselmeyer. He makes clocks and toys, and he likes a surprise. He has brought dolls that dance by themselves.
He has one more gift, for Clara. It is a wooden nutcracker carved in the shape of a soldier. Clara loves it at once.
Fritz wants it too. He grabs it, and it breaks. Clara cries. Drosselmeyer ties up the nutcracker with a handkerchief, and Clara lays it in a doll’s bed under the tree.
Midnight
The party ends, and the house goes dark. Clara cannot sleep. She creeps downstairs to check on her nutcracker.
The clock strikes twelve. Something odd begins. The tree grows taller and taller, until it fills the room. The toys under it are now as big as Clara.
Then she hears scratching. Mice run in from every corner. Their leader is the Mouse King, who wears a crown.
The battle
The Nutcracker jumps up, alive. He calls the toy soldiers, and they line up with their swords and a cannon. The soldiers and the mice fight. The Mouse King comes straight for the Nutcracker.
Clara pulls off her slipper and throws it. It hits the Mouse King, and he turns around. That is all the time the Nutcracker needs. The Mouse King falls, and the mice carry him away.
The snow forest
The Nutcracker is a wooden toy no longer. He has turned into a prince. He thanks Clara and asks her to come with him.
They walk through a forest of pine trees. Snow begins to fall, and the snowflakes dance around them, faster and faster.
The Land of Sweets
Clara and the Prince arrive in the Land of Sweets. The Sugar Plum Fairy rules there. The Prince tells her how Clara saved him.
The Sugar Plum Fairy thanks Clara with a party. Sweets from around the world dance for her. Chocolate dances a Spanish dance. Coffee and tea each have a dance. Dancers leap through a fast Russian dance. Shepherds play on little flutes. Mother Ginger walks in wearing a skirt as wide as a tent, and children run out from under it.
Then the flowers waltz. Last of all, the Sugar Plum Fairy dances with her partner.
Morning
Everyone waves goodbye, and Clara and the Prince ride away. In many versions, Clara then wakes up under the tree at home, holding her nutcracker. Was it a dream? The ballet does not say.
Why some versions call her Marie
The ballet comes from a story by the German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, published in 1816. In his story the girl is named Marie, and Clara is the name of her doll. The French writer Alexandre Dumas retold the tale in 1844, and the ballet follows his gentler version.
When the ballet was first danced, in St. Petersburg in December 1892, the girl was called Clara. Some ballet companies have gone back to Marie. Both names belong to the same girl.
Each company changes a few things
No two productions tell the story the same way. In some, a child dances Clara. In others, an adult dancer does. Some end with a dream, and some send Clara off in a sleigh. Some companies have changed the Coffee and Tea dances in recent years. Check the story notes on your ballet company’s website, and tell your child what will be different.
Questions to ask after reading
- Who is the bravest person in the story? Why?
- What would be in your own Land of Sweets?
- Was it a dream? How could Clara find out?
- Which part do you want to see on stage?
Print and play
Hear the music for each scene with the Nutcracker Suite listening guide. The Nutcracker listening map gives a child eight dances to tick off. To meet everyone in the story, read Nutcracker characters: who is who in the ballet.
For five more plots, read ballet stories for kids. Going to see it? Read taking kids to The Nutcracker ballet and how long The Nutcracker runs.
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Use it with your kids
Print a listening page, a practice chart, or a composer fact sheet. Or try a tool, such as the composer timeline or the piece picker.