Beautiful Noise: The Music of John Cage

by Lisa Rogers, Il Sung Na (Illustrator)

Overview

Open this unique picture book and meet John Cage, the pioneering, inspiring composer who believed all sound—from the crash of a slamming door to the whirr of a blender to the whoosh of the wind—was music.

For John Cage, music was everywhere: in the hum of the refrigerator, the screech of a garbage truck, the patter of the rain. But other people disagreed. They felt that, surely, a pianist on stage must actually play their piano to create music...not just sit there. And in no way was it melodic to turn a musician's mic on and off as they do play their instruments--it was just chaos!

John Cage found sound in silence, and knew that all noises were unique. All you had to do was listen to hear it.

Told in second person and paired with exciting illustrations as innovative as Cage's music, here is a picture book--perfect for any budding musician--that celebrates the genius of a nonconforming musician who always stayed true to his artistic vision.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593646625
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	1,096,297
Product dimensions:	8.38(w) x 10.25(h) x 0.42(d)
Lexile:	AD1040L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Lisa Rogers is the author of 16 Words, which received two starred reviews and was called "a fine introduction to a celebrated American poet" by the New York Times. She is an elementary school librarian and a former newspaper reporter and editor. Lisa holds a master's degree in Library and Information Science and is a member of SCBWI. She lives just outside of Boston with her family.

Il Sung Na is the author-illustrator of many books for children, including A Book of Sleep; Bird, Balloon, Bear; That's My Carrot, and A Book of Babies, all of which received at least one starred review. The New York Times has praised that Il Sung "brings fresh energy to the familiar." Originally from South Korea, Il Sung studied illustration at Kingston University in London, and now lives in Kansas City with his wife, where he spends time teaching illustration courses at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/16/2023

Forgoing biographical particulars, Rogers carefully details the perceptive work of American composer John Cage (1912–1992) with a survey of his inspirations and performances, inviting readers to contemplate the concept that “any noise could be beautiful.” Framing the story with a recurring “What if...” (“What if you composed a piece of piano music/ without any notes”), onomatopoeic lines create a sense of Cage’s unconventional music (“blenders and juicers and washing machines/ all whirring and spinning and swishing and sploshing/ onstage”), and underscore his determination to explore sound despite criticism. In digitally rendered illustrations that employ striking vertical and horizontal lines, Na exhibits sound through vibrant colors and bold shapes against line art backgrounds, varying the style of each spread and increasingly warping the flat perspective as Cage experiments, fittingly representing his inventive music and spirit. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Creators’ notes conclude. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ "A good introduction to Cage and a reminder that hearing things differently can be a very good thing." —Booklist, starred review

★ “Onomatopoeic lines create a sense of Cage’s unconventional music…and underscore his determination to explore sound despite criticism.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review 
 
★ “Readers will likely be curious to experiment themselves and ‘be like John Cage…” —The Horn Book, starred review

"A great introduction to a composer who was a disruptor and pioneer; this is a solid addition to school libraries and music departments." —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

09/01/2023

K-Gr 3—Beautiful end papers jump-start this introduction to composer John Cage. Wildly divergent sounds are illustrated with dots, scribbles, splashes, and stamps of color. Each page that follows is an invitation to be like Cage, a leading pioneer in 20th century avant-garde music and dance; readers are asked to think, feel, and listen as he did. Some examples of his creativity are given, e.g., his use of squiggles and dots instead of musical notes, or his 4.33-minute piano piece that was completely silent. He would turn mics on and off at concerts to affect the musical experience. He wrote music using appliances and lights. His deep belief that all sounds are beautiful comes through over and over. Cage wanted sounds conventionally considered noise to be heard as music. The illustrator was captivated by the idea of making sounds visual; the art throughout the book flows, grows, and startles just as Cage's music did. His mix of neon colors with muted tones invites readers to change how they hear music and to listen to all sounds with new appreciation. VERDICT A great introduction to a composer who was a disruptor and pioneer; this is a solid addition to school libraries and music departments.—Elisabeth LeBris

School Library Journal

2023-07-26
The story of a composer and performer who didn’t just push musical envelopes…he shredded them.

Rogers presents the bad boy of 20th-century art music as an inveterate experimenter who was, from childhood on, hyperaware of the ambient urban sounds all around him and dedicated himself to finding new ways to make and use them. In this he might sound a lot like Charles Ives in Mordecai Gerstein’s What Charlie Heard (2002), but Cage ventured much further than Ives into weirdness—by tucking random junk into piano strings, for instance. Whether accidentally setting himself on fire, as he did once (commenting “Isn’t that marvelous?”), writing music that resulted in alienated audiences walking out midway through a performance, or offering a piece consisting entirely of over four and a half minutes of silence, he “was serious,” the author argues, “about asking people to accept new ideas, recognize music in everyday life, and be still enough to hear sounds in silence.” Na incorporates a self-developed vocabulary of dots, squiggles, and slashing lines, assembled in a labeled glossary at the end, into evocatively vivid and jumbled scenes of city streets, explosions of color creeping into drably hued rooms, and images of concert halls filled with racially diverse, stunned-looking audiences and musicians. Young readers may not be attracted to Cage’s music but will come away with a strong sense of his liberating open-mindedness. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Tantalizing glimpses of a composer who challenged the very definition of music. (author’s and illustrator’s notes, quotation sources, selected sources) (Picture-book biography. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews