It’s been a while since my last listing of U.S. history titles pulled together for the homeschooling of 7-year-old S and soon-to-be-3-year-old F, and there have been a couple of key developments in the meantime.
First, S has become all the more independent as a reader — bedtime stories have become the exception, by his choice — and as a result I’m focusing on picture books for the Barton boy who is still lap-ready.
Second, F received drums for Christmas, so this month, we’re reading about musical figures — singers, instrumentalists, and composers alike — which means we’ve got aural examples of the work of most of the folks that we’re reading about.
As I’ve noted before, there’s a disproportionate number of picture books written about jazz musicians, but there’s a lot to love about and learn from many of them. There’s another way to look at the situation, however: It may be that other genres have simply been underrepresented so far, and there are encouraging signs that this is being corrected.
This spring will see the second children’s history of country music in as many years. My friend Gary Golio has forthcoming picture book titles about Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. I myself have manuscripts in the works profiling a couple of overlooked giants in 20th century American music. For all of these as-yet-unveiled works, I’m hopeful that readers will come away with a sense not merely of key artists’ popularity and how that success was measured — gold records, Billboard rankings, and the like — but of how their time, place and circumstances fired their artistry, and what their work meant to their audiences then and now.
As for those books already on the shelves, there are far more worthy titles than one family can take on in a single month. These that I’ve listed below are simply those that caught my eye. If you’ve read them already, what did you think? Which others would you recommend?
What Charlie Heard
by Mordecai Gerstein
If I Only Had a Horn: Young Louis Armstrong
by Roxane Orgill and illustrated by Leonard Jenkins
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue
by Anna Harwell Celenza and illustrated by JoAnn E. Kitchel
Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa
by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by Brian Pinkney
This Land is Your Land
by Woody Guthrie and illustrated by Kathy Jakobsen
David Gets His Drum
by David “Panama” Francis and Bob Reiser and illustrated by Eric Velasquez
When Marian Sang
by Pam Muñoz Ryan and illustrated by Brian Selznick
Charlie Parker played be bop
by Chris Raschka
Looking for Bird in the Big City
by Robert Burleigh and illustrated by Marek Los
Buddy: The Story of Buddy Holly
by Anne Bustard and illustrated by Kurt Cyrus
Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa
by Veronica Chambers and illustrated by Julie Maren
I love “What Charlie Heard.” But I’m a classically trained musician, not jazz, so that might make a difference. I already have certain memories associated with Charles Ives. But I do think Gerstein does an amazing job of making sound visual. Here’s my review.
WHEN MARIAN SANG is an outstanding book. Selznick’s illustrations are worthy of a Caldecott.
Jeanette Winter’s SEBASTIAN: A BOOK ABOUT BACH is a good picture book biography.
For a biography of a composer who was a tad odd you might enjoy M. T. Anderson’s STRANGE MR. SATIE, which was illustrated by Petra Mathers.
You won’t want to miss JAZZ, a book of poems written by Walter Dean Myers. I was on the Cybil poetry nominating panel. I really liked this book, which we selected as one of the five finalists.
PLAY, MOZART, PLAY!, written and illustrated by Peter Sis, doesn’t have much text–but I think young children can relate to this book about the composer’s childhood.
In fact, when I was teaching second grade, I found that some of my students really liked biographies of famous children. Barron’s publishes a series, in paperback, called Famous Children that includes books about Bach, Chopin, and Mozart.
Renee, your review is right on — especially about Gerstein’s use of silence. That’s a hard page to read without choking up. One of the things I most admire about Ives — and Gerstein’s take on his life — is that music was something he was passionate about in addition to the career that was his livelihood. He did not choose — or have to choose — between them.
Thanks for the suggestions, Elaine. M.T. Anderson’s Handel, Who Knew What He Liked is another good one. As for Marian Anderson, I have to say that I like the book — and admire her story — much more than the recordings of her music, which strike me as arch and dated and fussy. When it comes to holding the interest of a toddler, she’s got no chance against the likes of Ella and Woody.
Chris, I started writing up my comments and then they got way out of hand. I stuck to modern American music, though, and just got around to finishing the post (those link-y ones kill me…)