Albany Library’s monthly book discussion group has chosen Charity & Sylvia for their September discussion.
We have copies available in the library now. Grab one to read ahead of time, then come join your neighbors for a casual conversation to talk it over on September 21st at 4:00!
About the Book
Weybridge, Vermont in February 1807 is small, cold, lonely, and beautiful. As an unwed woman with few prospects, Sylvia Drake resides with and cares for her sister’s rambunctious family. But today the house is abuzz awaiting a guest—Charity Bryant. So opens Charity and Sylvia by Tillie Walden, the award-winning, Vermont-based cartoonist and author of Spinning and On a Sunbeam.
Created by Walden from archival materials at the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury, and other primary and secondary sources, Charity and Sylvia is a groundbreaking biography that is also the story of 19th century America. For 44 years Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake lived together as life partners in small town Vermont. And in Walden’s graphic novel, America grows alongside these women. We see the arrival of railroads, the terms of 14 Presidents, riots, rebellion, and plagues.
About the Author
Tillie Walden is the award-winning, Vermont-based cartoonist and author of Spinning and On a Sunbeam and Charity and Sylvia. Tillie served as Vermont’s Fifth Cartoonist Laureate from April 2023 to April 2026. She won the 2018 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work at 22 years old, for her graphic memoir Spinning, making her one of the youngest Eisner Award winners ever. She received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2018 for On a Sunbeam.
Her work includes a graphic novel trilogy featuring The Walking Dead character Clementine and two middle grade graphic novels created with musicians Tegan and Sara. Clementine: Book Three by Tillie Walden is currently nominated for a 2026 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award in the category of Best Publication for Teens. She is a graduate of The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) class of 2016 in White River Junction and became a professor at CCS in 2021.
