The piano man

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In this beautiful story, poignant prose and lush paintings tell the story of a girl's bond with her grandfather through their shared love of music. Eric Velasquez' stunning picture book debut, for which he received the Coretta Scott King New Talent Award, captures Debbi Chocolate's vivid memories of her grandfather, the piano man, his long career spanning decades of American music history, and his special talent for sharing his passion with generation after generation.

Critiques (5)

Critique de School Library Journal

K-Gr 3Chocolate adds to her list of books on African and African-American themes with a fictional memoir drawn from her own family history. "My grandfather," begins her narrative, "played piano for the silent movies." He played on Broadway for the Follies and sang and danced in vaudeville. When marriage and family ended his days on the road and silent movies turned into talkies, he became a piano tuner. His greatest joy in his last years was to play the old upright piano bought by his daughter from the theater he once filled with music. Bright red theater curtains on the endpapers set the stage for the series of well-designed, realistic, double-spread paintings in acrylic with pencil cross-hatching, which bring the past to life. Warm, vibrant earth tones enliven the text. But central to the story, and the key to its enjoyment by young readers today, is the narrator's memories of a beloved grandfather, a warm family, and a black community happily entertained by early films and ragtime music.Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Critique du Publishers Weekly

Chocolate (On the Day I Was Born) looked no further than her own backyard for this lively and affectionate tribute to her grandfather. Told from the girl's point of view and spanning three generations, the picture book reprises a versatile African American musician's career, from his salad days working as an accompanist for silent movies, where "he'd play romping chords to the thriller-diller chase scenes flashing across the big silver screen," to the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, a ragtime road show and vaudeville, where he met and married a dancer. Steeped in nostalgia, the story unfolds like a short film, with black-bordered pages mimicking freeze frames from a movie reel. Velasquez's exuberant, realistic paintings follow the thread of family life, tracing the ties that bind father to daughter to granddaughter as well as offering a window on a bygone era. Bittersweet moments, such as the day "talkies" arrived and piano players were suddenly out of work, keep the story from slipping into the saccharine; poignant moments, such as the day the girl's mother purchased the old movie house piano for her grandfather's 75th birthday, lend it genuine tenderness. In a final fade-out, the old man plays accompaniment to a TV cowboy movie with the sound turned down, to the delight of his granddaughter. This vivid picture of America's past may well prompt discussions of the nation's history as well as family roots. Ages 5-8. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Critique de Horn Book

The piano man's granddaughter proudly relates his pianistic triumphs in silent-film accompaniment, on Broadway, in medicine shows and vaudeville, and, after the talkies took over, in piano tuning. This is a heartening slice of African-American family history that is refreshingly short on role-modeling and long on joy and visual glamour, as provided by the beautiful glossy woods of Grandfather's pianos. From HORN BOOK Fall 1998, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Critique de Kirkus

Chocolate (Kente Colors, 1996, etc.) refers to her grandfather as the man behind this story, but this memory piece about a pianist in the days of silent films and vaudeville comes with the standard disclaimer--that all the characters and events are fictitious. A narrator talks about her grandfather, who gave the audiences of silent movies the appropriate thrills with his piano music, teamed up for dancing with his wife, and then returned to the movie theater when his daughter was born. It's an appealing story, but young readers won't make much sense of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jelly Roll Morton, and Scott Joplin's cameo appearances. The text is flawed by an anachronism--Phantom of the Opera was not produced as a musical until 1943, so a pianist would not have played themes from it to accompany silent movies--as well as a musical improbability. Joplin would not have encouraged a ""lightningfast Maple Leaf Rag,"" since this most famous of his pieces was the one most often butchered by the ""speed"" players of his day, and he customarily published this warning at the head of his composition: ""Notice! Don't play this piece fast. It is never right to play 'rag-time' fast."" Velasquez provides expressive but flawed paintings, e.g., in one scene, the black piano keys are grouped incorrectly, and in another, the tuba player's arm and the trumpet's valves are missing. For such a charming story, it's unfortunate that so many of these details are wrong. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Critique de Booklist

Ages 5^-8. In this first-person picture book, an African American girl tells the story of her grandfather, who played piano in a silent movie theater, a Broadway theater, a medicine show, and vaudeville. After marrying a vaudeville dancer, he played in movie theaters again until the talkies came along, then tuned pianos for a living. Years later, the piano man's granddaughter loves to turn on a television western with the volume low and listen to him play piano "and hammer out his memories of the old silent picture shows." Velasquez's artwork sweeps the somewhat adult story along, and his subtle characterization of faces gives warmth and individuality to the main characters and often to figures in crowd scenes as well. The jacket art shows the piano man with a disconcertingly modern-looking daughter (confusingly, the narrator's mother), but most of the pictures nicely reflect the various periods of his life. Students assigned to interview their grandparents for family history will find this an appealing starting point. --Carolyn Phelan

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