A young girl spends song-filled summers with her music-loving grandmother in the Philippines, but when her beloved Lola starts slipping into silence and stillness, the girl helps her grandmother hold on with music and the joyful memories the songs bring.
Featured in WOW Review Volume XV, Issue 2.
Hailing from the Tremé neighborhood in New Orleans, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews got his nickname by wielding a trombone twice as long as he was high. A prodigy, he was leading his own band by age six.
Singer, dancer, actress, and independent dame, Josephine Baker felt life was a performance. She lived by her own rules and helped to shake up the status quo with wild costumes and a you-can’t-tell-me-no attitude that made her famous. She even had a pet leopard in Paris! From bestselling children’s biographer Jonah Winter and two-time Caldecott Honoree Marjorie Priceman comes a story of a woman the stage could barely contain. Rising from a poor, segregated upbringing, Josephine Baker was able to break through racial barriers with her own sense of flair and astonishing dance abilities. She was a pillar of steel with a heart of goldall wrapped up in feathers, sequins, and an infectious rhythm.
Jean longs to play the banjo, but the Django keeps on messing things up! So Jean sends the Django away, but wonders if he has lost his most precious inspiration.In this fictional story inspired by the famous jazz musician Jean “Django” Reinhardt, a young boy named Jean meets a special character called the Django. He’s fun and exciting, but he always gets Jean into trouble. Eventually the Django has to be sent away, and Jean misses him very much, until he discovers that he can still feel close to the Django every time he picks up his banjo.
Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father–the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.