60 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 4, 2019
Review_CHILDREN’S
Baby Bowie: A Book About Adjectives
Running Press, illus. by Pintachan. Running Press Kids, $9.99 (24p)
ISBN 978-0-7624-6801-0
Iconoclastic musical artist David Bowie becomes a goggle-
eyed avatar of adorableness in this description-oriented board
book, part of the Baby Rocker series. Each spread features a
word and adjective pair on the left-hand page, facing a bright
Pintachan illustration of the item in simplified geometric
shapes and a saturated rainbow palette. As the pages turn,
specific adjectives—“spiky hair,” “shiny lightning bolt”—
give way to more generic pairings—“loud guitar,” “tall
microphone.” True Bowie fans may be dismayed to see their
hero depicted with two matching aqua eyes—their mismatch
was part of his unmistakable look—but adults who eschew
more traditional preschool fare may enjoy passing on their
sensibilities distilled into a toddler-friendly package. Also
available: Baby Kiss: A Book About Colors. Ages up to 3. (Sept.)The Music of Life
Louis Thomas. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-
374-30315-0
In the middle of the night, Lenny the composer is stuck
trying to write a symphony: “he’d been sitting at his desk for
hours, and not a single note of music had come to mind.” As
his frustration crescendos, inspiration arrives from an unlikely
place: Pipo, his cat. The “Lick, Lick, Lick,” sound of Pipo
lapping up milk triggers a flow of inspiration as Lenny begins
to hear ideas for music in the world around him: “ ‘Oho! What
is this?’ The leaking sink gave Lenny another idea. ‘It’s not a
symphony, but it feels like music!’ ” Ambient sounds—the
tinkle of a bicycle bell, the laughter of a baby—lead to creation.
Drawing loose inspiration from the work of Leonard Bernstein,
Thomas shows one way that composers find ideas, and loose,
color-washed illustrations of Lenny’s Parisian world have
something of the charm of Ludwig Bemelmans about them. A
symphonic ode to the act of creation. Ages 3–6. (Feb.)Joni: The Lyrical Life of Joni Mitchell
Selina Alko. HarperCollins, $18.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-06-267129-5
This loose biography of the legendary singer-songwriter
centers on Mitchell’s feelings while tying popular songs
(“Chelsea Morning,” “Woodstock”) to biographical moments.
This emphasis, rendered in affirmational
language—“hearing all these natural
feelings sung out loud helped people feel
understood”—focuses on the sense of
Mitchell’s music as much as the facts of
her life and artistry. Alko follows Mitchell’s
life from her childhood in small-town
Canada (she felt “like an upside-downbird on a wire”) to her bout with polio (“she wished she could
kick and scream”) and later relationships (“she fell in and out of
love and cried all the time”). Portrayals of her professional life
also focus on feel (regarding negative reactions to her album
Mingus, “Joni didn’t care.”). Layered mixed-media collages
featuring cut paper, found images, and colorful smears of
paint effectively evoke the richly rendered emotional land-
scapes of Mitchell’s songwriting. An author’s note, discog-
raphy, and bibliography conclude. Ages 4–8. (Feb.)A Voice Named Aretha
Katheryn Russell-Brown, illus. by Laura Freeman. Bloomsbury,
$17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-68119-850-7
Shades of purple and gold predominate in this laudatory
picture book biography of the Queen of Soul. Tracing Aretha
Franklin’s life from her 1940s–’50s childhood in Detroit,
singing as part of her pastor father C.L. Franklin’s “Gospel
Caravan,” to performing for President Barack Obama (pictured,
but not named), it covers the major moments in the life and
career of this musical legend—the death of her mother, her
first church solo, the years of work and performance before she
had a hit, and her eventual stratospheric success. Franklin’s
ongoing support of civil rights is a recurring theme: “Aretha
sang only where people of all races could attend” and she
“performed in lots of concerts to raise money for civil rights
groups.” Freeman’s clear, crisp illustrations add welcome
vibrancy to the text’s straightforward narrative style. Additional
biographical information and extensive notes from the author
and illustrator are included. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)Welcome to Jazz:
A Swing-Along Celebration of America’s Music,
Featuring “When the Saints Go Marching In”
Carolyn Sloan, illus. by Jessica Gibson. Workman, $24.95 (32p)
ISBN 978-1-5235-0688-0
In this interactive volume, readers meet three cool cats
(literal felines) at a jazz club, where one explains the art form
to the others. This setup allows Sloan to offer a relatively com-
prehensive introduction to jazz, from its origins as “an African
American art form” to its signature sounds, toggling between
the cats’ dialogue and text-block explanations. A push-button
side panel with 12 musical features plays instrument sounds
(trumpet, double bass) as well as stylistic elements (scatting,
improvisation), and each is called out in the text. Gibson’s
swooping, stylized forms have a retro-mod flair, showing black
and brown musicians performing for the trio of wide-eyed cats.
Supplemental material delves deeper into jazz’s roots: “Out of
terrible hardship and the unjust cruelty of slavery came beauty
and innovation in the form of a new kind of music and the
brilliant musicians who played it.” Ages 4–8. (Oct.)Pump Up the Volume
Nonfiction books introduce children to a wide world of music.