Elementary Music Books

Every day, Hosea takes the Number 42 bus into the city to play his shiny brass saxophone-and to hopefully earn enough money. Setting up in his favorite place, Hosea makes sweet music as people greet him with a smile, a little girl dances, and crowds surround him. A surprise ending reveals what the money is really for. Kathleen Blasi's delightful text and Shane Evan's colorful images capture the real-life closeness between the much-loved Hosea-who...

Ever since she was a young girl, Lil Hardin played music with a beat. She jammed at home, at church, and even at her first job in a music store. At a time when women's only place in jazz was at the microphone, Lil earned a spot playing piano in Chicago's hottest band.

Pa Paw and Lorraine always lift their spirits by playing music together, but their instruments are missing when a fearsome storm hits the Tennessee hills.

Tameika is excited to audition for the school's Snow White musical, but when she overhears her classmates say she is too tall, chubby, and brown to play Snow White, she questions whether she is right for the part.

When the richest man in town can't sleep, he hires Johann Gottlieb Goldberg to play him lullabies on the harpsichord. Goldberg's work doesn't quite do the job, and nobody in the town can sleep. But then the composer Johann Sebastian Bach enters the scene with a series of lullabies called the Goldberg Variations, which makes the entire town happy.

At night when everyone else is asleep, one artist sits awake--pencil in hand, stuck. Lenny is a composer, but this evening, no music floats from his head. Then as night breaks into dawn, Lenny's cat, Pipo, begins lapping milk. Lick lick lick. Birds yawn awake, singing in the trees. Tweet tweet! A bike bell tings on the street below. Suddenly, Lenny notices a rhythm to the world around him. He pulls on his coat and walks through the city to write...

Lu and her friends spot patterns in their daily activities, including patterns found in music, weather, time, play, shapes, nature, math, and language.

This is the story of how Les Paul created the world's first solid- body electric guitar, countless other inventions that changed modern music, and one truly epic career in rock and roll. How to make a microphone? A broomstick, a cinderblock, a telephone, a radio. How to make an electric guitar? A record player's arm, a speaker, some tape. How to make a legendary inventor? A few tools, a lot of curiosity, and an endless faith in what is possible. Featuring...

Using the lyrics to Tom Chapin and Michael Mark's "The Library Song," this picture book celebrates the magic of reading and of libraries.