On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
Published by First Second on October 2nd 2018
ISBN: 1250178134
Pages: 544
Goodreads

This YA graphic novel love story set in space has depth of story and character as well as heft, coming in at 500+ pages. Using a muted palette, Walden toggles between two time lines, one told in flashbacks, that of Mia and Grace in school and in the early days of their love story in hues of purple-grays, and one in present time, that of Mia as part of a ship’s crew hiding away her story but still burning for the girl that got away in hues of reds and amber yellows.  By setting her story in space, Walden is free to meld whimsical elements like spaceships shaped like fish and to press the edges of the page and the imagination with towering architectural structures and deep chasms of nothingness where not only Mia can ruminate on her past but the reader can fall into the spaces between the stars, lost in the story. The characters are all female with the one exception being a non-binary mechanic with secrets of their own. The fact that there are no men is not a question; it is a statement, and it works beautifully.  The characters demand honesty and exhibit expansive thinking and acceptance and unconditional love. Walden has turned the space cowboy trope on its head with quiet grace and has lost none of the intrigue and adventure.  There are expletives and some mild scenes of romance but nothing an upper-middle school reader couldn’t handle; the size and non-linear storytelling and depth of content probably make this better suited for 9th grade and up, but the more people who read Tillie Walden, the better. Highly recommend.

Reviewed by Jill O’Connor, Merrill Memorial Library, Yarmouth