The Key(s) to Jazz

Piano Starts Here, The Young Art Tatum

Written by Robert Andrew Parker

Illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker

Random House, 2008

31 pages

Nonfiction

            The Jacksonville State University library stocks tons of children’s books, so I just started pulling books off the self and reading them.  I found this one and really liked it because it told me a story about a part of history that I know little about... The Jazz Age.  During this time Jazz was heard in bars, speakeasies and juke joints.  Art Tatum was a very important part of the Jazz Age and made a name for himself in those places.  This story gives a look inside his life before he made movies, records and toured the world.  He was born with an eye disorder that made him virtually blind.  He taught himself to play the piano, and the rest, as they say, is history.  So grab an Art Tatum music download and learn a little about the man playing the piano on your iPod.

            The illustrations are done in a surreal water color with wonderful color use.  I enjoyed the illustrations of this book as much as the story.  The artist wanted the reader to see the world a bit like Art Tatum did…blurry at first, so some of the illustrations are blurry.  They are soft and kind to the eye and the text is on the illustrations for easier reading.

            This book would be good for kindergarten through sixth grade.  This book gives a wonderful account of a time in history that most of the children in school now never hear about.  This book will be good for a music lesson the unit could be about Jazz and the men and women who made it famous.  A health lesson could address blindness and hearing, and how our other senses take over and excel when we lose or do not have all of our primary senses.   A social studies lesson about different eras of time would work well comparing life then and now.   To my knowledge this book has not won any awards.