Saturday, August 16, 2014

Graphic Novel Review of To Dance by Siena Cherson Siegel

 
Synopsis: "Dancers are young when they first dream of dance. Siena was six -- and her dreams kept skipping and leaping, circling and spinning, from airy runs along a beach near her home in Puerto Rico, to dance class in Boston, to her debut performance on stage with the New York City Ballet.

To Dance tells and shows the fullness of her dreams and her rhapsodic life they led to. Part family history, part backstage drama, here is an original, firsthand book about a young dancer's beginnings -- and beyond."


My Review: This was an interesting way to portray ballet and a ballerina's work to get to the top. I thought the illustrations were lovely but there were times they would start to portray something and I would want to follow it but the author chose to jump to something else. The ending was rather abrupt as well, it was almost as if the author didn't want to share anymore and just dropped the subject. While I would suggest this to young teen girls to deliver a message about working hard to follow their dreams, I don't think the ending would help with that message. Maybe I am being too critical as I am definitely the picture story of how plans change as we get older, but this one just didn't sit right with me.
 
My Rating: I definitely enjoyed the artistic quality to the story and the effort put forth to become the dreamed about ballerina, but I was rather disappointed in the ending. I give it a rating of Two Paws.

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