Muse Reviews » Mozart: The Wonder Child

Do you love music? Classical music? Do your children love to study about biographies of famous people? I have an excellent book for music lovers and historians, young and old alike.

Mozart: The Wonder Child: A Puppet Play in Three Acts is an accurate storytelling of the life (albeit short) of the world renowned composer, Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. (Yes, his name was that long!) He began showing signs of being a musical genius at age three. This story tells of his father, Leopold’s, felt duty to show his son’s great talent to the world. The highs and lows of childhood performance duties are explained well, giving explicit insight into the time period and European culture during this era, as well. In many ways, I’m sure “the music industry” isn’t all that different today.

The story, of course, goes on to tell about his young adulthood, the trials of illness and financial woes, his opportunities to write operas for the Munich Theater, and his marriage to Constanze and fatherhood to several children of his own.

Diane Stanley, the author and illustrator of this book, has written and illustrated numerous other children’s books, historical biographies, and novels. (You can visit her webpage here.) The artwork is characteristic of the paintings of that time. Created with egg tempera on gessoed wooden panels, this is another authentic aret technique of that particular time era. (Go to EggTempera.com to learn more about this process.)

The text is interwoven among the pictures, as well as musical scales and notes. This book is not like other biographies in that the paintings depict the characters as marionettes, strings attached to their arms and legs and being controlled “off page.” What a creative perspective! It lends even more classic antiquity to the tale.

Interspersed among the pages are angelic cherubs that are also suspended by string over the scenes, holding scrolled cards with trivial tidbits and fascinating facts about Mozart and his life.

For homeschoolers, inquisitive historically-minded kids and adults, or just those who hold fast to well-written and well-illustrated texts for children, I highly recommend Mozart: The Wonder Child by Diane Stanley. You can purchase this graciously sized hardbound book for $17.99 from your favorite local bookseller or a host of online stores.

Win it! Thanks to HarperCollins, one of you will win a copy of Mozart: The Wonder Child for your home library. Simply browse around at HarperCollins Children’s Books and tell me another book, in one comment, your kids would love. I’ll close the contest next Friday, July 24, 2009 at 11pm EST. Sorry; US entries only. Good luck!

CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.

Congrats to commenter # 16, Sarah of My Charmed Life, who’s won a copy of this book!

19 Comments so far

The Last Polar Bear looks like a great book too!

Hi! Another book my children would love is If You Give a Moose a Muffin!
Many thanks, Cindi

We LOVE books here. My Five Senses by Aliki looks really cute.

My girls would love…
Warriors Field Guide: Secrets of the Clans

We have really been wanting Goldalicious!

My daughter loves all the “Little Bear” books, and I saw several that she doesn’t have. Also we’ve enjoyed Eric Carle’s works, and I noticed a Ladybug book and one other Carle book that we would enjoy.

Fancy Nancy Tea Parties would be a pleaser at my house!

Please enter me, thanks!

nbmars AT yahoo DOT com

The original Amelia Bedelia is such a classic, and I can remember my own dad reading it to me and substituting my name for the protagonist’s…would love to purchase that for my little ones!
Thanks for holding the giveaway!

celialarsen(at)gmail(dot)com

Would love to read Sloppy Joe…

janemaritz at yahoo dot com

I would love to win this for my niece! I think that she would love Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy.

whitechocolatecherries@gmail.com

We liked the The Last Apprentice: The Spook’s Tale

The Magic Theif looks really good!

We like the Frog and Toad books, as well as the Little Bear books – both by Lobel.
Maybe it’s time we could start in on some Beverly Clearly books too!

Thanks!

The Vampire Diaries series of books

Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy would be my daughter’s pick

I think my son would like Biscuit Finds a Friend By Alyssa Satin Capucilli – he loves puppies!

We’ve been wanting to read Goldalicious because we’re big fans of her other books!

Thanks! foxsquirrelrabbit at gmail dot com

Flat Stanley was a great one when I was teaching…but I don’t have it myself. It’d be great to have.

anything beverly cleary! those are some of my favorite books from childhood!

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Mozart: The Wonder Child

Search

Top Posts

Meta