Oscar Peterson for jazzy little book worms
The best way to introduce children to the works of jazz pianist Oscar Peterson — well, it’d probably be by playing them the music itself. The second best way would be to read them Bonnie Farmer’s picture book, Oscar Lives Next Door: A Story Inspired by Oscar Peterson’s Childhood (Owlkids Books, 32pp, $18, ages 4–8, with illustrations by Marie Lafrance). The story of Peterson’s childhood is told through the eyes of a fictionalized neighbour girl. Young Millie is fascinated by the music that the Peterson family produces, but she is mostly interested in exploring the neighbourhood with her friend Oscar. Real biographical details are blended in with imagined moments, including most notably Peterson’s bout with tuberculosis at the age of seven, the illness which forced him to give up playing the trumpet.
Like Peterson, both Farmer and Lafrance have lived in Montreal’s Little Burgundy neighbourhood. Though Little Burgundy has changed dramatically since Peterson’s childhood in the 1930s, the book brings the neighbourhood to life, making it shimmer and hum on the page, and positing it as integral to Peterson’s development as a musician as learning to play any instrument. Calling Dasha Tolstikova’s book A Year Without Mom (Groundwood Books, 176 pp, $20, ages 10–14) a graphic memoir wouldn’t be inaccurate, but it might be a little simplistic. It’s a book told in quiet fragments, sewn together with ribbons of girlhood. The story begins in early ’90s Moscow, when 12-year-old Dasha’s mother leaves for work in America. Dasha stays behind with her grandparents, and her immediate loneliness is punctured with moments of distraction brought on by nerve-racking crushes, schoolyard gossip, and pop songs courtesy of the Beatles. Tolstikova’s visual style is filled with shades of grey with the occasional dash of red or navy blue, but infused with a warmth and sense of humour that prevent it from becoming sterile. The Russia represented in Tolstikova’s illustrations is dark and sparse but, as every page serves as a reminder, it is above all home.