To Dance

To Dance

A Ballerina’s Graphic Novel

By Siena Cherson Siegel

Illustrated by Mark Siegel

Atheneum

Copyright 2006

pp.59

To Dance

A Ballerina’s Graphic Novel

Nonfiction Biography

     To Dance is a unique memoir of Siena’s journey to become a ballerina using a graphic novel format. Before this class I was not a huge fan of graphic novels, but I cannot imagine Siena’s story being told any other way. The illustrations by Mark Siegel captivated me and help me to see and feel the pain a ballerina must go through to perfect his or her craft. The illustrations also help provide clues to reader, so he or she can make inferences on how Siena is feeling.

     The book uses every page, even the endpages to tell Siena’s story. Siena’s journey began in San Juan, Puerto Rico when she gave up her Saturday morning cartoons to take ballet lessons. After a summer program with the American Ballet Theatre in New York, Siena knew that dancing was her calling. At age eleven she auditioned for the School of American Ballet. This section of the novel retells her feelings and emotions mostly through pictures, which helped me to feel all of her anxiety and fear. It also brought back all those feelings of insecurity I had when growing up.

     Siena and her family eventually move to New York so she could attend ballet school. Her father is absent much of the time. Eventually the fighting between her parents escalated and they decided to divorce. This reminded me of my own parents before their divorced, and how I would do anything not to listen to their fighting. Siena was lucky she had a brother she to share her pain with, where as I had to deal with all my emotions by myself.

     I felt Siena’s sadness when her beloved instructor Mister B passed away; the emotions told through the illustrations were outstanding. I then became worried for her when she had a serious ankle injury and could not dance anymore. What would she do, she had spent almost all of her life in pursuit of her dream? When the novel ends, it uses the endpages to come full circle and show Siena once again dancing on the beach, but this time with a baby in her arms and the feet of a man in the background. I could infer from this illustration that Siena was content and happy with her life.