Waiting to Sing - Hardcover

Kaplan, Howard; DK Publishing

4.11

9 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0789426153 ISBN 13: 9780789426154

Publisher: Dk Pub, 2000

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A family that loves music and spends many hours at the piano is devastated by the death of the mother, but those still living find consolation in the beautiful music that also remains.

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From School Library Journal:

Kindergarten-Grade 4-A gentle story about childhood loss and healing. Life is idyllic for the family in this book and music provides the joyous center of their home life. The father teaches his son to play the piano and an encouraging mother is always present in the background. When she becomes ill, she asks the boy to play her favorite song, "F?r Elise." After her death, a melancholy silence pervades the house. Time passes and one day the boy hears his father play "F?r Elise." The two then play the piece together, and the song unites them as they begin their healing: "It was our way of crying, the way it had once been our way of laughing." This story is unapologetically sentimental but rich in graceful metaphors and imagery. (Musical notes on a score "-looked like a thousand birds had landed in front of us.") Blondon's dreamy, stylized pastel illustrations on handsome oatmeal-hued paper are arresting yet affectingly appropriate to the tone. The luminous palette is suffused with warmth from soft rose to glowing gold. Though not as subtle in its details, this is reminiscent of Libba M. Gray's My Mama Had a Dancing Heart (Orchard, 1996) in the mood of tender reminiscence it evokes. An afterword provides a note about "F?r Elise." This picture book will be appreciated for its solemn but straightforward presentation of a father and son coming to terms with their grief.
Kate McClelland, Perrot Memorial Library, Greenwich, CT
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Music proves both painful and comforting for a boy and his father after the death of the boy's mother in this picture book by noted poet Kaplan. Through the boy's image-laden narrative, Kaplan describes a family whose "story was played on the piano." Brief memories spill out onto the pages like the notes of a well-loved song: the father playing music while the boy falls asleep; the warm fountain of light pouring over the piano top from a G clef-shaped lamp; the sound of "F?r Elise," the song that mother most wants to hear as she grows increasingly ill. After the mother dies, neither son nor father can bring himself to play, until one day when the two share a moment of grief--not through words, but through music. The lyrical narrative voice takes on an adult perspective looking back on childhood ("Sometimes I think the greatest distance to be traveled is that between two beating hearts"). This sophistication is echoed by Blondon's (The Well of the Wind) artwork, stylized pastels in warm tones of orange, brown and green with a distant, dreamlike feel. A carefully crafted, deeply felt book likely to be more appreciated by older readers than the typical picture book crowd. Ages 5-8. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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