Book+Nook

=Children's Books. . . =

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= Can You Hear It? = By Dr. William Lach, Metropolitan Museum of Art
 * Grades 2–6.** This visual and aural feast invites young listeners to "listen and look" at 13 examples of pictorial music and visual masterpieces. The introduction prepares readers with an explanation of the connections between composers' notes and art images. A woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige, the pointillism of Seurat, and landscapes by Jacob van Ruisdael and Thomas Cole are among those included in the presentation. The paired examples invite listeners to identify solo instruments or orchestral themes that characterize an image found in the visual art, e.g., "Can you hear the gun battles?" in a pairing of a Remington painting with Aaron Copeland's //Billy the Kid: Gun Battle.// Works by Vivaldi, Saint-Saëns, Gershwin, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Copland reflect a broad range of artists and orchestral styles from America and Europe.

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=// Puff the Magic Dragon //= By Peter Yarrow, Lenny Lipton; Illustrated by Eric Puybaret; with CD
 * PK-Grade 2.** With Yarrow’s and Lipton’s blessing, Puff, Jackie Paper, and the land of Honalee finally live on the page. The exquisite package includes a cloth case with a tipped-in illustration and an embossed jacket with foil touches, as well as an exclusive CD featuring not only Puff, but several other songs performed by Yarrow, his daughter Bethany, and cellist Rufus Cappadocia.

=// Mole Music //= By David McPhail Mole finds that digging all day and spending his evenings alone leave him unfulfilled. Upon hearing a musician on TV, he decides to create his own beautiful music. After much patience and practice, he learns to play the violin more magnificently than the man who first inspired him. The passage of years is conveyed visually by the growth of the tree above Mole's home from little acorn to mighty oak. Mole's music is, at first, jarring and almost kills the tree, but as he becomes more skilled, the tree flourishes. Mole imagines sharing his glorious gift, soothing people's discontentment, and perhaps even ending disharmony in the world. His lovely music has imbued the tree with an aura of tranquility; animals and people are drawn to it by its serenity. Most of the pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations reveal Mole's underground activities in the lower half of the pictures and life aboveground in the upper half. The story suggests that by doing something that brings pleasure to oneself, it is also possible to affect the lives of others in a meaningful way. A quiet story of a life well lived.

=//** I Know a Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello **//= ​by Barbara Garriel, illustrated by John O'Brien This adaptation of "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" begins, "I know a shy fellow…/…who swallowed a cello/I don't know why he swallowed a cello/Perhaps he'll bellow." The instruments the man guzzles come from a wide variety of venues, including a sax from a jazz ensemble, a fiddle from a rockabilly band, and a kazoo from a child's birthday party. When he imbibes "the teeniest, tiniest, petite cascabel," his belly finally rebels and out of his mouth "jingled the bell," "buzzed the kazoo," "tooted the flute". . . until "last but not least, out cha-chaed the cello!" This is a high-spirited and amusing story with dynamic cartoons, highlighted with energetic pen-and-ink lines that vibrate with color and action. The main character continually changes shape to reflect the proportions of each instrument he consumes, and his antics are a good match for this silly, enjoyable romp.

=**// Pictures at an Exhibition //**= ​by Anna Harwell Celenza, illustrations by Jo Ann E. KitchelIt’s It's the late 1800s and Modest Mussorgsky and his friends Victor Hartmann and Vladimir Stasov want to show the glories of Russia to the world. But their world turns upside down when Victor, and artist, dies suddenly. Modest abandons his dreams of writing music and shuns the company of his other friends. Vladimir must find a way to help his friend deal with the loss of a loved one and encourage Modest to follow his musical dreams.

=// George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue //= by Anna Harwell Celenza, illustrated by Joann Kitchel The creation of Gershwin's 1924 masterpiece is the subject of this picture book. The story, rendered in watercolor-and-ink caricatures, opens in the legendary pool hall where George's brother Ira discovers a newspaper announcement for a concert at which his sibling's new jazz concerto is to be featured–only it hasn't been written yet. After the disbelief subsides and the conductor who placed the ad is confronted, the musical genius embarks on a journey in which doubt, inspiration, and frustration overlay frenzied periods of intense work. Celenza's tale, with invented dialogue, brings the composer to life. The text incorporates musical ideas to discover the klezmer howl of the opening clarinet, the blues, and the love song for New York in the main theme. An author's note contains Gershwin's words describing the rhythm of the train ride that freed his mental block, providing ideas for content, style, and direction. Kitchel's sensitivity to this source material is especially evident in her spread of multifaceted patterns and images, presented as cameos against a black background; they relate to the composer's concept of a musical kaleidoscope of America.

=// The Dog Who Sang at the Opera //=

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by Marshal Izen and Jim West; Illustrated by Erica Oller

Spun from a true incident with a reprinted story from the //New York// //Times//, the authors reconstruct the story of an unscheduled duet on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. Pasha, a Russian wolfhound, is thrilled to be tapped for the festival scene in a production of //Manon--//even though it means sharing space with Sluggo, a cheery, mixed-breed clown dog. Her debut comes to a sudden end, however, when she loses her head and chimes in on an aria. The authors flesh out the event with behind-the-scenes details, plus a tidy close that has Pasha, Sluggo, and their owners taking regular walks together. Oller illustrates it all in colorful, diffuse watercolors that perfectly capture the bustle of an opera company in action and Pasha's slender, elegant lines. A good-humored note from Renee Fleming, the episode's human diva, closes out this memorable night at the opera.

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he Music and the Composers Who Wrote the Music
By Robert Levine, Illustrated by Meredith Hamilton Orchestra Bob guides readers through a delightful musical journey. The book is divided into two major parts: composers from Vivaldi to Bernstein and their associated musical periods, and the instruments of the orchestra. There are interesting and sometimes humorous bits of information about the men, their music, and corresponding historical events. The last two pages introduce the conductor. Quotations, boxed definitions, and the captions that accompany the colorful photos and spot cartoon drawings enhance the instructive text. In some places, however, the drawings are in stark contrast to the photos and take away from the overall appearance of a page. An accompanying CD provides musical selections for readers to listen to at specific places in the text. These selections are short enough to keep young listeners' attention. Although some well-known figures, such as Handel, Schubert, and Strauss, are missing, this is a fun way to travel through the world of music.

[|Music: A Mathematical Offering] Free online version (pdf format) of the textbook by David Henson, Ph.D., Chair of Pure Mathematics at University of Aberdeen, Scotland. For those Upper School advanced math students who want to gain an undergraduate level introduction to the interdisciplinary subject of music and mathematics (which also involves physics, biology, psycho-acoustics, and the history of science and digital technology).