Midnight Hour Encores

I finally grabbed this from my bookcase on a whim the other night and started in. For some reason, I had thought this was a fantasy. I don't know why, exactly, other than I read that almost exclusively for the longest time. It also means that I have the delight of discovering new-to-me young adult books that people normally read back in middle or high school that I skipped over.

Like this one.

If you were to ask what is the theme of this book, I'd have a hard time describing it. There's music, of course, as the main character is a cellist. It's not quite a coming of age story, though it's close. It's a story of family, and self, and music.

Silibance T. Spooner unexpectedly asks her father to take her to meet her mother, who she has never show more met. This starts a cross-country journey where she learns about her parents and the Age of Aquarius. There's some very well-done introspection on how people change over time and being true to one's self, as well as finding oneself through music.

There's also a secondary story about a mystery Soviet cellist that Sib spends an inordinate amount of time trying to track down, that ties in neatly and wonderfully with the main story.

There's really a lot going on in this book. I enjoyed it a lot. I only wish I had actually read it 15 years ago. I also wish it wasn't so long out of print. show less

In the '80s, a confident 16-year-old cello prodigy makes some big decisions about the course of her life, which lead to discoveries about big decisions her parents made in the '60s. Beautifully drawn characters and a plot that, like a good melody, combines the familiar with the surprising.

A story about Sibilance T. Spooner, 16 years old, an elite cello player who asks her father to take her to meet her mother who left "Sib" when Sib was a day old. Sib's father, Taxi, makes the cross country trip a retrospective on the Sixties to help Sib understand her mother. But both are in for surprises when they finally arrive. Well written, would recommend to students interested in the Sixties.

Sibilance T. Spooner, a cello prodigy, travels across the country to meet her mother and to try out for a new elite music school.