Description
Product Description
Teddy Wilson and Benny Goodman broke the color barrier in entertainment when they formed the Benny Goodman Trio with Gene Krupa. Here is the story of how two musical prodigies from very different backgrounds grew up, were brought together by the love of music, and helped to create the jazz style known as swing.
From School Library Journal
Gr 2–6—The true story of jazz musicians Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson is told in deep blues and gold with splashes of red throughout. The lyrical prose infuses the book with the spirit of jazz ("Benny blowing /bleating /breathing /music /into Benny's clarinet.") The illustrations are realistic and reminiscent of Jerry Pinkney's God Bless the Child (HarperCollins, 2003), yet the watercolors seem to blur together at times and swing like the music that Teddy and Benny play. The biographical back matter will give readers more insight into all of the musicians mentioned and shed light on how a love of music helped the two break down color lines.—Krishna Grady, Darien Library, CT
From Booklist
While a young Benny Goodman was growing up on the West Side of Chicago during the Roaring Twenties, Teddy Wilson was in Alabama, listening to Fats Waller. Music was a part of both boys’ lives: Benny played the clarinet; Teddy was a piano player. This title tells their stories on alternating pages until they meet in New York City. Benny’s clarinet is blowing “all sweet / all dance / all white.” Teddy’s playing is “all hot / all rhythm / all black.” Initially, the duo jams and cuts records, but the musicians don’t play together onstage: “Audiences weren’t ready for a black-and-white band.” The endnotes tell a different story: it was Goodman, worried about his career, who didn’t want to go onstage with Wilson until disappointed audiences walked out. Nevertheless, this introduces an important event in a snappy text that swings. Ransome’s line-and-watercolor pictures also flow with movement and color. Kids drawn in by the story of the young artists will go on to ponder the history. Grades 2-4. --Ilene Cooper
Review
"The lyrical prose infuses the book with the spirit of jazz . . . the watercolors seem to blur together at times and swing like the music that Teddy and Benny play. The biographical back matter will give readers more insight into all of the musicians mentioned and shed light on how a love of music helped the two break down color lines."—
School Library Journal
"Writing in punchy free verse that echoes the bounce of both men's music, Cline-Ransome traces Goodman and Wilson's parallel—but separate—paths to jazz fame . . . Working in watercolor outlined in loose pencil, Ransome strongly evokes the allure of music that Goodman and Wilson both felt as boys, as well as the way jazz all but demanded people get up and move"—
Publishers Weekly
"[I]ntroduces an important event in a snappy text that swings. Ransome’s line-and-watercolor pictures also flow with movement and color. Kids drawn in by the story of the young artists will go on to ponder the history."—
Booklist
" A solid exploration of a resonant musical partnership at a historically significant moment in American music."—
Kirkus Reviews
"This book is a great starting point for students to discover two jazz greats."—
Library Media Connection
About the Author
Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome have collaborated on many award-winning picture books for children. These include Satchel Paige, which was an ALA Best Book for Children and Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass, which received starred reviews in Booklist and School Library Journal. The Quilt Alphabet was praised as "A blue-ribbon ABC book that combines bright, folksy oil paintings and lilting riddle-poems," in a starred review in Publishers Weekly and called "a feast for the eyes" in School Library Journal. They live in the Hudson River Valley region of New York.