What a Song Can Do

Armstrong, J. (Ed.) (2004). What a song can do: 12 riffs on the power of music. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-82499-5

Why read this book

Like listening to your favorite music, reading these stories will make you feel hopeful about life.

Summary

This collection features twelve short stories, all with teen-age protagonists, whose themes involve the power of music. The range of settings and times is impressive, from the battlefields of the Civil War (“The Song of Stones River,” by Jennifer Armstrong) to a gypsy camp in Europe during World War II (“The Gypsy’s Violin,” by Gail Giles) to contemporary urban and rural communities. The music that enriches the protagonists’ lives is also diverse, from traditional American Indian music (“A Warrior Song,” by Joseph Bruchac) to classical European music (“The Audition,” by J. Allison James) to Cuban music (“New Town,” by Alexandra Sly). Two of the stories are written in verse (“Ballad of a Prodigy,” by Jude Mandell, and “What a Song Can Do,” by David Levithan). Most of the protagonists are musicians (such as the nine members of a band whose individual reflections form “Variations on a Theme,” by Ken Koertge), but some are not (such as Cora, in “Tangled Notes in Watermelon,” by Dian Curtis Regan, whose ability to see colors and shapes when she listens to music has made it impossible for her to learn to play the piano, even though her grandmother is a piano teacher). Music helps one young man in Los Angeles establish his own identity in the face of his family’s legacy as Holocaust survivors (“Riffs,” by Ann Manheimer) and helps a young Palestinian girl in a long-term refuge camp find beauty in a life surrounded by violence (“Piano Obsession,” by Ibtisam S. Barakat). In the final story, a teenage girl learns to love her piano lessons while the adults around her are tensely following the news of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis (“A Third Kind of Funny,” by Sarah Ellis).

Critical evaluation

All twelve stories are well-crafted and clearly inspired by the authors’ love of music. The collection is probably especially interesting to young adults who play music themselves, but anyone who listens to music (which, as the introduction points out, is all of us) is bound to be engaged by the revelations of the various ways in which music enriches our lives.

About the editor

Jennifer Armstrong was born in 1961. She grew up in New Salem, New York, and currently lives in Saratoga Springs, New York. Since the 1980s she has published dozens of fiction and non-fiction works for readers of all ages under her own name and other names. She ghost-wrote over 50 titles in the Sweet Valley High and Sweet Valley Kids series and wrote five titles in other series using the pseudonym Julia Winfield. Much of her writing under her own name has focused on historical topics, both fiction, such as The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan (1996) and Mary Mehan Awake (1996), about an young Irish immigrant during the Civil War, and non-fiction, such as two books on the 1914 Shackleton expedition to the Arctic, one for young adults and one picture book for younger readers. She maintains a Web site at www.jennifer-armstrong.com.

Genre: Music, Short stories

Curriculum ties

If I were a high school music teacher, I would consider asking students in the band or orchestra to read some of these stories and then write about how music has affected their lives.

Book-talking ideas

• Read “Ballad of a Prodigy” by Jude Mandell. It’s a short story written in verse and the theme of identity is one that teenagers can probably relate to easily.

• Read two or three of the first-person narratives that comprise “Variations on a Theme” by Ron Koertge. They are short but give a feel of what students will find in the collection.

Reading level/interest age

Most middle school and high school students would find the reading level accessible, and the topic of music interests some students of all ages.

Challenge issues

There’s no sex, violence, or profanity in any of the stories. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would challenge any of them, although one involves a same-sex couple.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

Why I chose to read this book

My group covered music for the genre reports, and I ran across this collection when I was looking for young adult books about music.

References

Armstrong, J. (n.d.). Jennifer Armstrong, Author and Historyteller. Retrieved November 22, 2009, from http://www.jennifer-armstrong.com

Jennifer Armstrong (1961 – ) biography. (n.d.). biography.jrank.org. Retrieved November 22, 2009, from http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1907/Armstrong-Jennifer-1961.html