{"id":2673,"date":"2007-01-04T07:32:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-04T07:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=2673"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:26:03","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:26:03","slug":"dreams-of-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=2673","title":{"rendered":"Dreams of Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

This book is a finalist for the graphic novels category of the 2006 Cybil Awards<\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n

Big, empty spaces always made me dance\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>More and more memoirs are taking advantage of the graphic novel format to relive the events of a life using both visual and written communication. However, you don’t see many of these aimed at a middle-grade\/young YA audience. To Dance: A Ballerina’s Graphic Novel<\/a> by Siena Cherson Siegel and Mark Siegel does a fine job of targeting a younger age group with a story that’s sweet, inspiring, and true-to-life. <\/p>\n

Though it might not be appealing to readers who don’t have at least a passing interest in dance or the dancing life, it provides a nice, vivid glimpse into the life of the young dancer Siena. Touches of gentle humor offset some of the harsher realities of what it’s truly like to train as a dancer\u2014painful feet and legs, nervousness on stage\u2014as well as the background story that hints at problems within Siena’s family. <\/p>\n

The art style is cute, and reminiscent of the illustrative style of Quentin Blake\u2014simple yet expressive and funny. There are some inconsistencies in the artwork; on occasion the main character was given a more detailed, baby-doll kind of look that I found distracting from the overall narrative. Aside from this very minor quibble, I really enjoyed this piece. Anyone who ever took dance classes as a child and had daydreams\u2014momentary or permanent\u2014will recognize some of the scenes and feelings evoked; and it’s hard not to cheer for Siena as her dance career takes some unexpected turns and she comes to realize that dance will always occupy a special space in her life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This book is a finalist for the graphic novels category of the 2006 Cybil Awards. Big, empty spaces always made me dance\u2026 More and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,5],"class_list":["post-2673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-af","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3863,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions\/3863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}