Jabuti the Tortoise: A Trickster Tale from the Amazon

Jabutí the Tortoise: A Trickster Tale from the Amazon
by Gerald McDermott

Jabutí is a tortoise that makes beautiful music.  For some of the animals in the rainforest, it reminds them of the times they’ve been tricked by Jabutí.  But the birds love his song.  Well, all except for Vulture – he would rather eat Jabutí.  When all of the birds are called up to a gathering by the King of Heaven, Jabutí wants to go to play his song.  Vulture offers to carry him, but drops him on the jungle floor where he lands on a rock and cracks his shell.  The King of Heaven sends all the birds out to look for him.  When they find him, they put him back together again.

This book is a clear illustration of how trickster tales are never fully understood in just one story.  In this particular one, we hear about how other animals don’t really like Jabutí because of how he tricked them, but those stories aren’t elaborated on in this tale.  I would love to know how he tricked Tapir into a tug-of-war with Whale.  But that’s not what this story is about.  In this one, the trickster gets tricked, a lot like Coyote in yesterday’s post.  But it’s not quite the same.  Another colorful addition to the collection, although I’m not sure if the style is representative of Amazonian art, since I’m not familiar with it.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

Hey Diddle Diddle

Hey Diddle Diddle
by Eve Bunting and Mary Ann Fraser (illus.)

What starts out as a typical nursery rhyme quickly turns into a full-out jam session!  While the cat’s playing the fiddle, the pig is playing the piano, the mouse is playing the harp, the camel’s got the trumpet, and all the other animal friends are there to help out.

This is an adorable picture book with a cute rhyming pattern.  I’ve been looking for good books about music to read to toddlers for this summer and this has moved to the top of the list.  I can’t wait to try it out with them.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

For the Love of Music: The Remarkable Story of Maria Anna Mozart

For the Love of Music: The Remarkable Story of Maria Anna Mozart
by Elizabeth Rusch, Lou Fancher (illus.), and Steve Johnson (illus.)

Practically everyone who can speak in complete sentences has heard of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and has heard some of his music.  If you’ve read The 39 Clues, you probably also know that he had a very talented sister, Maria Anna (affectionately called “Nannerl”).  This is her often overlooked story.

Truthfully, this book drew my attention because I had read The 39 Clues: One False Note, so I had heard of Mozart’s sister.  I don’t really remember what The 39 Clues said about her or if it was accurate, but I am highly pleased that this story was written.  Very little is documented about her life, so this book was mostly created from the remaining correspondences between Maria Anna and her famous brother and pieces of her journals.  She was a devoted sister, and she never stopped loving music.  Her brother highly respected her compositions; but because she was a woman, she never got the exposure that Wolfgang got in the music world.  I was fascinated by her life and devotion, and I wish that some of her pieces remained.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

The Composer is Dead

The Composer is Dead
by Lemony Snicket and Carson Ellis (illus.); music by Nathaniel Stookey

The composer is dead.  He is de-composing.  Who did it?  Was it the basses, bored with their parts?  Or perhaps the overly-flattering bassoons?  Or the foreigners – the French horns?  The inspector will get to the bottom of this atrocious crime against humanity and/or classical music!

If you’ve ever read any of my reviews of a Snicket book, you know how much I love his verbosity.  I love that he doesn’t underestimate children’s capacity for difficult vocabulary.  And I love the sarcasm.  So in general, I love this book.  Because of the tour through the orchestra that the inspector takes, the material is definitely on a higher reading level than most picture books.  Not for preschoolers, but definitely a great intro to the musical world for elementary-aged children.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Children’s Book of Music

Children’s Book of Music

From the earliest musical discoveries up through Lady Gaga, the Children’s Book of Music takes children around the world and back in time to learn about music.  Organized chronologically, this book emphasizes musical stylings, musical instruments, and key figures (pun intended) in musical history and current trends.  This book also contains a glossary in the back and an accompanying CD with several examples of the music described.

This is an excellent mini-course in music appreciation.  If I taught music, I would totally use this book to supplement my curriculum.  Probably not meant to read in one sitting like I did, the snippets of information are accurate and interesting.  And I’m sure the music community appreciates the inclusion of music from different cultures around the world and how they shaped classical and modern music – I know I did.  Looking through this book made me want to dig up some of my favorite orchestral pieces (one of my favorites is the 7th movement from Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” in case you were wondering), and discover some new ones too.  I’ve had several classes in music history and appreciation, and I’m glad that I still learned lots of new things.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

Where She Went

Where She Went
by Gayle Forman

Warning!!  Contains spoilers for If I Stay!!

Truthfully, this whole book’s existence is a spoiler for If I Stay.  Three years after the car crash that killed the rest of her family and put her into a coma, Mia Hall is now living in New York City.  Having graduated early from Julliard, she is about to start off her first virtuoso tour.  Ex-boyfriend Adam Wilde doesn’t know that when he arrives in New York City, on the verge of his own European tour.  This time told from his point of view, Adam intermittently relives his break-up with Mia and experiences one crazy night in NYC after running into her after one of her shows.

Up until the last 30 pages or so, I didn’t think this book was nearly as good as the first one.  It was a little too unrealistic.  It reminded me of a writing prompt we had in 7th or 8th grade: boy meets girls, boy gets girl, boy loses girl.  Emocore singer/guitarist meets classical cellist.  Music binds them and they fall in love.  Girl almost dies in car crash and she moves to NYC, leaving boy in Oregon.  Believable.  Boy is a rock star with number one hits beating out Lady Gaga.  Girl is virtuoso cellist.  Girl’s best friend is a photographer for National Geographic.  One night answers three years of questions.  Just seemed too far out there.  However, Forman is still able to use words – inadequate notes – to describe what music can do to a soul, which is an amazing talent.  This is a book that I wish had a soundtrack, because every other chapter starts with the lyrics of one of Adam’s songs.  They are pure, angsty poetry, and I would love to hear more them.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (the movie)

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (the movie)

So I read the book and watched this movie months ago.  July it looks like.  Here’s that review if you don’t remember it.  I drafted a review for the movie, but I guess I never got around to doing it.

Try as I might, I didn’t like the movie.  I didn’t really like the book either, so I guess that didn’t give it much to go off of.  Some substantial parts about the book were changed, mostly the quest for Where’s Fluffy?  In the book, they find the band relatively early on.  In the film, the characters are driven by a quest to simultaneously find Fluffy and Norah’s friend, who has wandered off in a drunken stupor.  I am bummed that we never get to hear what Where’s Fluffy? sound like.  I also have a tough time with Michael Cera as the leading man.  After having read the book, I just don’t think Cera can pull off the kind of guy that Nick was supposed to be.  On the contrary, Kat Dennings’ Norah was superb.  And I’d like to be her friend.

The best part about this movie is that it can be summed up in 5 minutes.  Lead actress Kat Dennings made a puppet version of the film.  This is why I want to be her friend.  This version is available in the DVD extras, as well as on YouTube.  I’m so glad I took the time to peruse the extras.

So here’s the link to the YouTube version.  Save yourself the time.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

If I Stay

If I Stay
by Gayle Forman

Stopped by the old watering hole today for iced grande sweetened green tea and a smile from a friend

Mia was expecting a snow day.  She was expecting a great day with her family.  She wasn’t expecting the swerving truck.  She wasn’t expecting to have to choose. Now as she’s watching her life unfold around her without her participation, she wonders if she can do it.  Can she live without her parents and without her brother?  Can she leave her grandparents and her best friends?  As she wanders around the hospital, reminiscing about her past, she wonders what she’s always wondered: where does she fit in?

I want to say I’m haunted by the beauty of this book, but that might have negative connotations.  It’s like listening to a sad, beautiful song. Forman’s descriptive abilities when it comes to the way that music makes you feel is phenomenal.  Music is such a big part of this story, the book is almost like a piece of music.  It’s fitting that Mia, the main character, is a cellist.  The cello has a low, somber sound that can elicit images of beauty and of tragedy, making you weep and smile at the same time.  That’s the best way I can describe how I felt about this book.  The way the story changes from present to past is like a seamless change in movements.  I almost didn’t read this book because of the grave subject matter, but I’m so, so glad I did.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Nick is trying to get over his breakup with Tris, the most gorgeous girl he’s ever been with.  Norah is out with her best friend, keeping an eye on her as usual.  Both of them start at the same bar.  After seeing Tris, Nick turns to the girl next to him (Norah) and asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes.  Since she is also dealing with ex issues, she responds by kissing him.  And that’s just where the night begins!  Their musical (mis)adventures take them through the late night underground world of New York’s punk-core youth and then some.

I have yet to watch the film version of this novel.  Since it was a Michael Cera movie, I was expecting something sweet, awkward, and with the occasional innuendo.  Boy was I ever wrong.  This book is not sweet at all.  I mean, it is at some points, if you can glean it from the volley of f-bombs that run through these teens’ minds.  It might be a bit like Holden Caulfield, where most of the swearing happens in his head, but it’s pretty rampant throughout the pages.  You’re also entering a dangerous territory when you take on the punk-core world.  I’ve had brushes with it through friends and acquaintances, and if the experiences in this book actually happen, I’m glad I never participated.  If you’re looking for a good teen love story, I’d look somewhere else.  If you’re looking for something rough, angsty, and uncensored, this is a very good book for you.  And I don’t mean that judgmentally.

Stylistically, this chapters alternate between Nick and Norah’s points of view.  Levithan wrote for Nick, and Cohn for Norah.  Personally, I really liked Levithan’s style.  Sometimes he goes off into lines and lines of stream of consciousness that actually made sense to me, and other times he’s quite pithy.  What I also like about Nick/Levithan is that Nick is a lyricist and he sometimes thinks in poetry.  It broke up the narrative very nicely.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.