Any book illustrated by Gary Kelley is a treat. The striking set of portraits of important blues pioneers at the front of the book is outstanding. I’d say he is one of my favorite artists for kids books, but the truth is, he is one of my favorite artists in any format. His pastel illustrations are just stunning.

The story is about Frankie, a young boy whose grandmother invites him to a blues concert. Frankie isn’t familiar with blues, and protests that he likes hip hop. She says she is confident he will enjoy the show, and he agrees to accompany her. The musician turns out to be a guitarist who uses the fingerpicking technique. Frankie is amazed that it sounds as if the musician is “playing 10 guitars at the same time.”

Now he wants to learn how to do that too. He is excited about the blues - he explains to his mother:

“… did you know that people in Africa were taken away from their families and brought to the United States? They had to work all day for free. They sang work songs to help them feel better which developed into the blues. And that is where hip hop came from! I learned all about it at the concert.”

‘That’s right sweetheart,’ said Frankie’s mother. ‘Music was the one thing that could not be taken away from them.’”

Frankie tries to teach himself to play the guitar but he needs help, so he signs up for lessons. He doesn’t have much success and his friends make fun of him for always trying the same song.

Then one day, out in the park, he hears someone say “Sounding real good.” It was a homeless person. Frankie asks if the man knew how to play, and it turned out he did. Frankie loaned him his guitar, and “To Frankie’s amazement, he began listening to the most beautiful music.”

Frankie asked the man, whose name was Walter, if he would teach Frankie, and Walter said only if it was okay with Frankie’s parents. The next day, Frankie’s mom and grandma came with Frankie to the park to meet Walter. Walter told them: “I may be homeless, but I’m harmless.”

The women were skeptical, but then Walter started to play for them. Frankie’s mother and grandmother were won over “by Walter’s sincerity and his melodic music.”

The story ends:

“Frankie was so grateful for the guitar lessons that he used money from his own savings and bought Walter a guitar. They continued to play music together, often attracting crowds of people that would stop to enjoy their music.”

On the book jacket we learn that the author, when not writing and publishing books, plays and teaches lap slide guitar and Native American Flute.

Evaluation: This is a very nice story, and I loved the tight relationship among Frankie, his mother, and his grandmother, and their mutual respect for one another. I would have enjoyed some more background on the blues (which, admittedly, is hard to discuss without a soundtrack). I hope children will be inspired to seek out blues tracks on their own via youtube. Certainly they will be curious about what got Frankie so excited! And children are basically given a pictorial map of whom to listen to by virtue of Kelley’s opening thumbnail sketches. ( )