The Color of Sound

by Emily Barth Isler

Overview

"[A] salient celebration of family, music, and neurodiversity." —starred, Publishers Weekly

"A top pick for any middle school collection; a perfect book club pick and a reminder to all that patience and understanding can change lives." —starred, School Library Journal

Twelve-year-old Rosie is a musical prodigy whose synesthesia allows her to see music in colors.

She’s never told anyone this, though. She already stands out more than enough as a musical “prodigy” who plays better than most adults. Rosie’s mom expects her to become a professional violinist. But this summer, Rosie refuses to play.

She wants to have a break. To make friends and discover new hobbies. To find out who she would be if her life didn’t revolve around the violin.

So instead of attending a prestigious summer music camp, Rosie goes with her mom to visit her grandparents. Grandma Florence’s health is failing, Grandpa Jack doesn’t talk much, and Rosie’s mom is furious with her for giving up the violin. But Rosie is determined to make the most of her “strike.” And when she meets a girl who seems distinctly familiar, she knows this summer will be unlike any other.

With help from a mysterious glitch in time—plus her grandparents, an improv group, and a new instrument—Rosie uncovers secrets that change how she sees her family, herself, and the music that’s always been part of her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728487779
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/05/2024
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	11 - 12 Years

About the Author

Emily Barth Isler is an author of essays and children's books, including the middle grade novel AfterMath and the forthcoming picture book Always Enough Love. Emily writes regularly about sustainability, organic/eco-friendly skincare, and healthy beauty products for magazines and blogs. Her next book, The Color of Sound, features a character who, like Emily, has synesthesia. She has a BA in Film Studies from Wesleyan University and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children.

Editorial Reviews

★ 12/11/2023

A talented tween with synesthesia probes her Jewish family’s history in this sonorous tale by Isler (AfterMath), who contemplates the generational trauma caused by the Holocaust. Twelve-year-old “musical genius” Golden Rose Solomon, who experiences sounds “as textures and colors, as feelings and temperatures and tastes,” longs to cultivate a part of her identity beyond “the girl with the violin.” To the frustration of her rigid mother, Shanna, Rosie goes on a music strike, forgoing symphony commitments. As punishment, she’s forced to join her mom on a visit to the dying grandmother Rosie barely knows. At Shanna’s childhood home, Rosie “somehow, magically, impossibly” meets a 12-year-old version of Shanna, who longs to play violin and resents her mother—Rosie’s grandmother—for forcing her to become a bat mitzvah. From Shanna, Rosie learns that her great-grandmother survived Auschwitz, an experience that echoes through future mother-daughter relationships in her family, making Rosie wonder whether changing the past could help Shanna understand her, and help revitalize her own connection with music. Intricately entwining interpersonal growth with each character’s relationship to their Jewish faith and culture, Isler highlights the role of family history in identity formation through metaphorical time travel. Color-centric imagery rendered in immersive prose translates Rosie’s synesthesia in this salient celebration of family, music, and neurodiversity. Ages 11–14. Agent: Emily Keyes, Keyes Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Isler crafts an exceptionally honest portrayal of complicated mother-daughter dynamics, and a protagonist whose independence and kindness is a stunning solo. . . a perfect book club pick and a reminder to all that patience and understanding can change lives."—starred, School Library Journal

From the Publisher

★ 01/01/2024

Gr 3–7—Rosie is a 12-year-old violin prodigy, but she is hiding her feelings, her fears, her hopes, and her synesthesia—she experiences sound as colors. Rosie and her mom go to Connecticut for the summer to stay with grandparents she barely knows; her grandmother is dying of dementia and often doesn't know her. Rosie refuses to continue the grueling violin practices and performances that she believes prevent her from being a regular tween girl enjoying sleepovers and crushes. But she doesn't throw a tantrum; it is a considered decision that her parents might better understand if they truly listened to her. As a result of tensions with her mom, Rosie spends time with her grandfather who shows her their family history, decimated and traumatized by the tragedies of the Holocaust. Encounters with a young girl, Shanna, on the farm lead to a tentative friendship and gives Rosie an understanding of the impact of growing up in an entirely different family structure. Rosie is able, in her gracious way, not only to learn from Shanna but to also help teach and guide her mother to a place of better understanding. Isler crafts an exceptionally honest portrayal of complicated mother-daughter dynamics, and a protagonist whose independence and kindness is a stunning solo. VERDICT A top pick for any middle school collection; a perfect book club pick and a reminder to all that patience and understanding can change lives.—Lee De Groft

School Library Journal

2024-01-05
Going on strike gives a synesthetic musical prodigy space in her life to learn the music of her Jewish heritage.

Two things control 12-year-old Rosie’s life: 1. Her unusual brain, with its full-sensory synesthesia, echoic musical memory, and exceptional violin talent; 2. her imperious stage mother. After her overpacked schedule causes Rosie to lose her only friend, she stops playing violin. Refusing music camp, she perforce accompanies her frustrated mother to her grandparents’ for the summer—without devices as punishment. Connecticut offers a fresh start. Alongside secretly watching improv classes at the public library and swimming with her grandfather, Rosie learns about her Hungarian Jewish family history. Most intriguingly, through some time-travel anomaly, she encounters a girl she realizes is her mother. Shanna as a girl is so different from Shoshanna as a grown-up that Rosie wonders how the one became the other—and if she can change that outcome. Rosie is an appealing, sympathetic character who develops believably in her quest to expand both her life and her music. While the scope of her synesthesia is conveyed in a somewhat confusing way, the descriptions of her sensory perceptions are lyrical and evocative, though at times excessive. The depiction of generational trauma is poignant and subtle, from Rosie’s Holocaust-survivor great-grandparents, to her dying, Alzheimer’s-afflicted grandmother, to her mother. However, as a literary device, Rosie’s unexplained time-travel interactions with Shanna feel awkward and unnecessary.

A quiet exploration of synesthesia, music, and family history. (discussion questions, author’s note) (Fiction. 10-13)

Kirkus Reviews