Children's Book Group Topic: February 2006

Music

(Note: this is a piece about the homeschooling children's book group in our area. I got the idea for an all-ages, all-reading-levels group from a children's librarian in another county. It has worked very well with our local homeschooling group. Although many libraries have reading groups for various ages, there are advantages to having one specifically for homeschoolers. The group can meet during school hours, when the library is less crowded; the all-ages forum works well for many homeschooling families; and it's an opportunity for even the youngest homeschoolers to participate in a book group, instead of having to wait until they're old enough to read or write to move past the more passive read-to-me storytimes most libraries offer the very young. The kids in our own group are of all different ages, learning styles, and personalities. Some actively participate, some just watch, but all of them enjoy having an opportunity to hang out with other homeschoolers. If your library doesn't have such a program, getting one started might be as easy as talking to the children's librarian. I hope this piece gives a feel for what the meetings can be like. Not everything I post is this book-heavy, but there are such a lot of good titles on this month's subject, and a lot of people have said they appreciate the help with choosing something to read. Read, enjoy, and consider starting a book group for the homeschoolers in your area. It isn't much work, and it's very rewarding.)

I know I just posted with the complete schedule for the next several meetings, but I just wanted to point out that the next meeting is pretty early in the month. We usually aim for the third Wednesday of the month, but I guess there was a scheduling problem at the library. So the February Homeschooler's Book Group will be on Wednesday, February 8. The subject is music.

The meetings are from 1:00 to about 2:30, held in the community room of the Fairview Branch of the Santa Monica library (21st and Ocean Park Blvd). Their phone number is (310)450-0443, if you have any questions, or you can check the web site (www.smpl.org). All ages and reading levels are welcome. We start with Sylvia, the children's librarian, reading a story, and then the children give a two-minute(ish) presentation of whatever book they'd like to share. They can also bring in pictures they've made, or other visual or tactile aids. Tammy's sons brought some amazing stuff last time for the arts and crafts-themed meeting, including a real little loom Dad just hammered together in his spare time the night before. (Tammy is one of those sweet, calm, unassuming, overachieving homeschooling moms we all love even though she makes the rest of us look like loser-dweebs on occasions such as this, and we can't even get mad at her because she's so nice about it. I mean, I didn't even make my bed that day, and they made a loom! And it worked! A real live loom! With weaving on it and everything! Okay, I'm stopping. I've stopped.)

So -- moving on to next month's theme. We're reading and discussing books about music, and there are a lot of really good ones out there. One of my favorites is The Philharmonic Gets Dressed, by Karla Kuskin, illustrated by the always-wonderful Marc Simont (if you're a Thurber fan, he did the pictures for The Thirteen Clocks). This book is exactly what it sounds like, and it's really quite amazing how much can be learned about an orchestra from this look at its members preparing for their night's work. It's a Reading Rainbow book, so any library will have it; but it's really worth getting your own copy, because it's something you won't read just once.

Another good book for the smaller set is Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin, by Lloyd Moss. The writing is fun -- not so much a story as a wonderful jam session with all the different instruments of the orchestra, cleverly and humorously rhymed -- but the illustrations are the real grabbers of this lovely little book.

Speaking of books that are at once beautiful and fun, not to mention wonderfully informative, don't miss Charlie Parker Played Be Bop, written and illustrated by Christopher Raschka. I love the fact that Dizzy Gillespie supplied a favorable blurb for this book. I mean, Publisher's Review, okay. They're going to say something about everything that comes out. But how often is Dizzy Gillespie going to tell you that your kid will love a book?

It's the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, so I do have to throw in a few books about him. There's a terrific series called "Famous Children" by Anne Rachlin, which talks about the childhoods of several composers. It's nice that she sticks to their youthful years, since musicians and composers aren't exactly known for their peaceful, happy-ending lives. Anyway, she wrote one about Mozart, of course. You kind of have to. He's the uber-prodigy who learned music so early and adeptly that, like Jacqueline du Pre with the cello, he seemed to already know how to play whatever instrument he sat down to, and had apparently only been waiting for his chance to display his knowledge. And of course as well as being a prodigal performer, he started composing when he was, like, two months old or something. (Does anyone remember that Calvin and Hobbes comic, where Calvin is sitting looking at a book about Mozart and mentions that he started writing music when he was five? "I think I was toilet-trained when I was five," Calvin says ruefully. Another great moment in literature.)

Rachlin wrote childhood biographies about other composers, too: Bach, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Chopin, and Brahms, all fast-paced reads, sweetly illustrated by Susan Hellard. The library is sure to have them, and they're available in inexpensive but sturdy paperbacks -- well worth investing in. (Yes, I own way too many of all the titles I'm talking about here. Well, how else would I be able to recommend them so highly? The things I do for you people...)

Another fabulous biography of Mozart, this one covering all of his life but still in a wonderfully cheerful way, is by Mike Venezia. I cannot praise Venezia's books highly enough, by the way. I own tons of them, want more, and am constantly bugging my son to let me read them to him because they're so much fun. Venezia's sense of humor is shamelessly over the top -- he illustrates his own books, in a cartoony fashion -- and he manages to pack in a lot of information while sounding as if he's just telling an interesting story that just happens to be true. I met his work when I stumbled across his fantastic series of biographies of artists. (I know we did artists last month, but I just have to point out really quickly that you can't ask for a better introduction to some of the world's best artists than Venezia's books, because not only are they a blast to read but you actually get to see examples of the paintings. He covers not only the standard classic dead white guy artists -- Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt -- but modern artists, too, like Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Jackson Pollock, even Andy Warhol. Venezia is incredibly prolific and I don't know how he manages to turn out so many good books, since he has kids and everything, but I'm awfully glad he does.)

Anyway, I hadn't even realized that he wrote a lot of biographies of composers as well: Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms, all the old biggies. If you and yours prefer more modern music, Venezia also has biographies of Duke Ellington, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, even the Beatles. I've found that having some recordings of the music on hand to play while or after reading makes for a richer experience. The Santa Monica library has a wonderful selection of cds -- try the main branch, now that it's finally open again (hooray!) -- and you can borrow up to 15 a day, I believe. So have a good time and load up on some great tunes for free.

This isn't exactly a book about music, and in fact I haven't technically read it yet -- just grabbed it from the library because I loved the title. It's Daniel Pinkwater's The Muffin Fiend, and apparently it's about Mozart going detective and finding out who is the nefarious thief attempting to steal all the muffins in Europe. I'm thinking it isn't strictly nonfiction. But it still could lead to learning about the real Mozart, right? Or at least baking a nice batch of muffins.

Okay, enough about Mozart and onto my all-time favorite -- Bach. My father-in-law keeps reminding me of how horribly misguided I am in loving Bach most, since, in obedience to the laws of physics, Bach isn't Beethoven. But the thing is, as much as I love Beethoven, he's kind of a special-occasion composer for me. I mean, you don't just decide to slap on his 9th symphony while you're lounging around in your pajamas and rummaging in the kitchen for a snack. Listening to him is more of a formal affair. Whereas with Bach -- you can find something for any time or place or mood. He can be witty and wise, funny and sweet, deep and knowing, wistful and weary. You can wake up to his Well-Tempered Clavier and then fall asleep to his violin sonatas, cheer yourself up with the Brandenberg concertos when you're having too heavy a day, sip a cup of java to the Coffee Cantata. I think of Beethoven as more like a bottle of twenty-year-old whiskey, and Bach as wine. Wine is for every day. Whiskey is going to mess with your head if you have it too often.

Anyway. There are some terrific picture books about Bach. One is Jeanette Winter's dreamy Sebastian: A Book About Bach. This book is simply written enough for the very young, and informative enough to be of interest to older kids. The illustrations are sweet and funny, reminiscent of Chagall's colors and floatings-about. If Venezia's books are like reading comics that happen to teach you something, this is a wonderful bedtime story that also imparts an affection for a Bach who is as simple and profound as his music. As the mother of a death-sensitive child, I was also glad to find this book because it manages to paint Bach's life from beginning to end without any wrench at the end -- with in fact a sweet and happy ending. You'll just have to read it to see how Winter manages this. The Santa Monica library carries this one (as it does many, if not most, of the titles I've already mentioned).

Another lively Bach picture book is Bach's Big Adventure, by Sallie Ketcham. It's based on a real incident in Bach's boyhood, in which he walked thirty miles to hear a great organist to see if this master could possibly be as great as boy-Bach himself. Everyone has had the modest thought at some early point in his life that one is the absolute greatest at something or other; it's rather enjoyable to see that the greats themselves lapse into the same kind of vanity at times, and are just as often wrong about themselves as we are mistaken in our own merits. Too, there's a mischievous pleasure in being a child and reading about the childhood of a figure one has only heard spoken of in tones of admiration and respect. Seeing that this great personage was, at one time, a child like oneself -- full of wishes and dreams, making mistakes and having to bear the consequences of them -- can kindle an interest in the work and life of the person in question without that resentment that so often can come along with a lesson about the greatness of yet another historical important.

Another childhood tale of a great composer is Handel and the Famous Sword Swallower of Halle, whose title I doubt many children could resist. What on earth could the composer of the breathtaking "Messiah" have to do with a sword swallower? Bryna Stevens has woven together what is known and conjectured about Handel's early life into a picture-book that is intended for a slightly older audience -- I can't imagine someone much younger than seven or eight getting much out of this book, which has a great deal more text than the picture books I've listed so far. But for the older child engaged in learning some of the history of music, this is a fine title. Handel's time and homeland are vividly evoked in both the writing and illustrations. (Another one to get from the library -- it seems to be out of print.)

Beethoven Lives Upstairs is about the grownup composer, but written from the point of view of a child, the son of Beethoven's landlady. This boy is baffled and disturbed by the strange habits of their bizarre tenant, and expresses his bewilderment and alarm in letters to his uncle, whose gently sympathetic replies round out the story and bring the boy around to understanding and even befriending the genius. This title is available in book form, and in an audio edition (a more vivid way of experiencing the work, since you get the benefit of hearing Beethoven's music at the same time as you listen to the story), and even, I think, a movie. Parents of sensitive kids should bear in mind that the main-character boy's father has recently died, and I believe (sorry, don't have the book in front of me) that the story ends with Beethoven's own death. I do know that the story is set in the last, tormented year of Beethoven's life, when he composed his greatest symphony but couldn't hear either the performance of it or the applause of the listeners. So emotionally speaking, this isn't a light, carefree experience -- but it is a worthwhile and enjoyable one.

There are a few really good general books about music and the orchestra that I want to end with. After much searching for something like what I had in mind -- informative but accessible to a young child, not too much text but not just cutesy-dutesy fluff either -- I stumbled across exactly what I wanted. It's called The Story of the Orchestra. It is cartoonishly, humorously illustrated, fun to look at and easy to read aloud (or to oneself, for the independent readers). It begins with a brief, informative but not overloading history of classical music -- the different periods (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc.), and a few representative composers for each period. One period or composer per page. Too many of the books for older readers have far too much information on each page, usually in eyestrain-o-vision beensy-sized print, as if the author or editor is anticipating a paper shortage and can't take a chance on spreading things out a bit when this might just be the last page of the book ever ever period and so heaven forbid they not cram every word about every instrument ever created or played on a two-page spread. This book keeps it jaunty, relaxed, and not overcrowded. The asides are short and amusing. The book moves on to a discussion, again well-paced, about the instruments of the orchestra -- each instrument illustrated with a gorgeous photograph as well as more of the colorful line-drawings. Best of all, the book comes with a cd, and each page has a "play this track to hear more about whatever." Most kids really seem to dig this. The most unschooled wee one on the planet doesn't seem able to resist the call of "It's time for track 3 now! Track 3! Skip one and two! Time's a-wasting!" Or maybe that's just my house. At any rate, this is a purchase I'm very glad I made.

The Kingfisher Young People's Book of Music is a much broader overview of music for a slightly older crowd. No cd with it, more's the pity, but lots of information (though thankfully not too crowded). While The Story of the Orchestra is best read straight through, a page or two at a sitting, this is a better pick-up-and-put-down book for the older browser to go through and see what catches his interest. Gorgeously illustrated, and addresses pretty much every aspect of music -- ancient and non-traditional instruments and world music as well as plenty about orchestras and classical composers. Gives just enough information to whet the appetite or sate a young student, rather than an in-depth report. A good resource for general information or as a jumping-off point to deeper study on a particular aspect of music.

Speaking of general overviews, I wanted lastly to mention a terrific book called Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times (and What the Neighbors Thought), by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by our own Santa Monica local Kathryn Hewitt. This is just one title in a terrific series of "Lives of the": writers, athletes, extraordinary women, and more, all by Krull and Hewitt, all beautiful and eye-catching -- they really make you want to pick them up, and once you do it's hard not to dive in and stay for a while. The writing is factual, but primarily anecdotal -- useful as an inspiration for further research, or a good opportunity to acquire some entertaining information about some of the most important names in music. Krull is an astounding fact-gatherer, both about the individuals she discusses and their time-and-place contexts. Scott Joplin, for instance, is easy to just plain listen to and enjoy at any age; but reading that many disapproved of ragtime music when it was a new and startling form, and even claimed it caused brain damage and destroyed morality, teaches a great deal about history -- musical and otherwise -- and lends an amusing new dimension to the listening experience. The biographical information is brief and educational, not gloom and doom but definitely unsparing -- if your child isn't old enough to hear about alcoholic parents, unhappy marriages, poverty and untimely deaths, wait a few years before you get this book or be ready to edit out anything too heavy as you read aloud. (I can't be the only one who does that. Can I?)

Sorry to go on for so long, but there are so many outstanding books on this subject and I feel I've only touched on a few of the best. Have fun finding what suits you, and hope to see you at the library.

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