Gabriella's Song

by Candace Fleming, Giselle Potter (Illustrator)

Overview

In the streets and canals of Venice, Gabriella can hear nothing but sweet music. The drying laundry goes slap-slap, the church bells go ting-aling-ling, and the lire go jing-aling-ling. Soon, Gabriella is humming her way through town — and everyone hears her song! Some find it sad, others smile when they hear it — but none can forget the beautiful melody. Before long, a certain struggling composer is inspired by Gabriella's song — and a beautiful symphony is born.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780689841750
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	04/01/2001
Series:	Aladdin Picture Books
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	630L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Candace Fleming is the acclaimed author of numerous books for children, including the Bulldozer books; Ben Franklin’s Almanac, an ALA Notable Book and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, as well as Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!, and Sibert Medal honorees The Honeybee, and The Giant Squid. She lives in a suburb of Chicago.

Giselle Potter has illustrated many books, including Once Upon a Fairy Tale House by Mary Lyn Ray, Try It! by Mara Rockliff, All by Himself? by Elana K. Arnold, and Kate and the Beanstalk by Mary Pope Osborne, as well as her own Tell Me What to Dream About, This Is My Dollhouse, and The Year I Didn’t Go to School, about traveling through Italy with her parents’ puppet troupe when she was eight. She lives in Rosendale, New York, with her husband and two daughters. Visit her at GisellePotter.com.

Editorial Reviews

Fleming (Madame Lagrande and Her So High, To the Sky, Uproarious Pompadour, 1996) celebrates music and its power to touch our lives. The setting is Venice, dazzlingly captured by Potter, in a palette of fresh colors and full of droll characterizations. Gabriella is walking home from the marketplace, and fashions from the flap of drying laundry, the jingle of coins, the ringing of church bells, and other sounds a little tune, which she hums at the baker's while buying a cannoli. The tune makes the baker's heart light, and he hums it, too. The widow Santucci stops in, hears the tune and becomes sad; nevertheless, she hums it on the way home, and the gondolier, overhearing her, plays it on the accordion. Thus the tune is passed throughout the city, evoking a variety of responses. To composer Giuseppe Del Pietro, who is experiencing a block just as a new symphony is due, the tune is heaven-sent, sweet music that he shapes into a great work of art. A disarmingly simple tale, this is inspiring and transporting.

Kirkus Reviews