![]() ![]() Its exposure to the wider American public came with the Chicago World’s Fair, in 1893, where attendees reported on how this exuberant, new music filled the air. ![]() Ragtime had been developing as a distinct musical style in the 1880s, though it remained little known outside of African American circles. In describing the music being made by the Joplin family, he writes, “Music filled the air like a breeze from Alabama.” For ragtime aficionados, he gives an occasional wink by hiding Joplin titles within his text. This bit of humor is not something that most young children would grasp, but adult readers would appreciate the joke, which points to another feature of the book: whereas it’s designed for the enjoyment of young children, it also has a sophistication that can delight their elders. In his opponent’s hand we can see only three cards, but they are also aces, with two more protruding from the top of one boot. We see five cards in the hand of one player: all aces, and in that player’s back pocket we spy three more. As a young man, he’s pictured playing an upright piano in a Western saloon while, among the seated patrons, two men are playing cards. The following pages show the young Scott making music with his parents and siblings, playing the piano in a white family’s home where his mother worked, studying music with a teacher (Julius Weiss), and finally setting off on his life as a musician. Scott Joplin’s introduction comes on the next page, as a young boy dancing with his mother. Turning to the next two-page spread, we see the people now singing, dancing, and shouting “Juneteenth,” celebrating the end of slavery in Texas. ![]() That hint prompted me to notice that the colorful design of these two pages is like that of a quilt, a theme that occurs in many of the book’s two-page spreads as well as on the back of the dust cover. It opens with a two-page spread-about 20 inches wide and 12 inches high-showing Southern Blacks in the immediate post-Civil War period at work in the fields and homes. The drawings are playful, the colors glorious, the text almost poetic, and the history is reasonably accurate. Though far beyond the publisher’s target age group of 4–8, I am thoroughly enchanted by this book about Scott Joplin. ![]()
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