Anna Harwell Celenza

Very creepy and not creepy enough at the same time, which may mean this book has struck a balance between the factual story of composer Camille Saint-Saëns and the fantastically ghoulish story his music tells. If you were going to visit the Paris catacombs, I'd definitely recommend giving this a read and a listen (the books comes with a CD recording of the Danse Macabre).

One part that struck me as interesting was the use of metaphor when describing the first performance of the piece. The show more text and the pictures both make it seems like something magical happened during the performance. "One by one the skeletons rose from their graves. Bone against bone, they rattled and danced." The illustrations only show the orchestra as a background image. In the foreground, we see a skeleton holding a fiddle. This part of the book describes the story the music tells, but an inexperienced reader could think the book just veered into fiction. I think this creates a good teachable moment about the use of metaphor in non-fiction. Common Core, baby! show less

Celenza tells the story of Duke Ellington's process during the recording of The Nutcracker Suite. The story is completely based on facts: every character is real, the interactions are real, and the recording does exist. However, Celenza relied on her imagination to fill in the gaps of information due to a lack of a detailed description of the recording session. The book is written much like a nonfiction book, but some of the conversations are made up. This is a very cute and funny book, show more there are many times throughout the book where silly language was used such as "The hippest cats of jazz-a-tooty." I loved the art style of the illustrations, which served as a good visual aid for cultural icons. The book reads well, and is very entertaining. However, for me personally, I just wasn't as interested in the story itself than I'd anticipated. I'm sure to anyone who has a deep love for jazz and ballet, they would love this book. show less

Wow, I feel really silly for including a picture book on Goodreads, but it was such a unusual find that I thought I'd review it anyway. It's about Bach, my favorite composer of all time, and how he came to write the Goldberg Variations, a particularly nuanced and complex composition, even for Bach. The author is a little loose with some of the history, but the story is intriguing, and this seems like a nice (and very accessible) way to introduce classical music to your children. The CD with show more the recording of the music is a plus. I'd recommend this for kids, parents, and fellow Bach-lovers. show less

I have mixed feelings about this book and enjoy some aspects of it, however do not necessarily love the book for a few reasons. One reason being the illustrations to the text and the amount of detail included. The images, while they are very well done, seem to be overwhelming and I think would distract the reader from the content of the book. As the author is trying to illustrate the sounds and visions of the music, the style I think is a bit much. Second, I am not a fan of the characters in show more general as they all show to have significance, however they are not fully developed throughout the book. The historical component is present, but character significance is not. The main message of the book is that in hard times people will find an outlet that works best for them to cope. In the book the outlet was art, literature and music; many people express emotion through different forms including these medias. show less