Do Re Mi: If You Can Read Music, Thank Guido D'Arezzo

by Susan Roth

Overview

If you can read musical notes, you can sing any song or play any piece. But musical notes have not always been here. Long ago, songs were memorized. If songs were forgotten, they were lost forever.
Thanks to one man, Guido d’Arezzo, music now can last forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547528816
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	01/08/2007
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	47 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Susan L. Roth has illustrated thirty-five books for children, many of which she has also written. She lives in Queens, New York, with her husband.

Editorial Reviews

Roth offers the story of the first written music for young readers. A thousand years ago in Tuscany, a young singer named Guido d'Arezzo gets the bright idea that members of the choir would be able to learn the music better if they were somehow able to see the sounds. His choirmaster pooh-poohs the notion and Guido goes to live with a community of monks in Pomposa, still gripped by his idea. There, a monk named Brother Michael encourages his parchment scribbles, even bringing him back from the brink of despair. When Guido returns to his home city, new bishop Teodaldo puts him in charge of the children's choir, and he uses his new system to teach them to read music. Hearing of this success, the Pope invites him to Rome, but Guido humbly declines: "I am Guido of Arezzo." Roth's ingenious and intricate illustrations, made of papers "from all over the world," constitute a unique vocabulary themselves. A sublime blend of education and entertainment. (glossary, bibliography) (Picture book. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews

A sublime blend of education and entertainment.
Kirkus Reviews

An appealing, accessible, and throught-provoking introduction to a rarely covered subject.
Booklist, ALA

"Roth's naif collages, populated by doll-like figures, quickly shoo away any misgivings that music history could be a bore, and make a marvelous counterpoint for her carefully researched prose." Publishers Weekly

"The language is simple and intimate. . .wonderful colors and fibers. . .attractive."

School Library Journal

"A gifted author-illustrator offers a lovely picture book...Her collage illustrations are always interesting." Buffalo News

Roth winningly narrates the ups and downs of Guido's efforts to work out his ideas and get them accepted. But it's the illustrations that really make the book sing: torn-paper collages wittily celebrating musical marks everywhere, from the staff lines of plowed furrows and stripey sunset clouds to the O-shaped mouths of chanting monks.
The Washington Post

"It's edgy and childlike at the same time, a quirky approach to a quirky subject." The San Francisco Chronicle —

From the Publisher