The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music - Hardcover

Flack, Roberta; Bolden, Tonya

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593479874 ISBN 13: 9780593479872

Publisher: Anne Schwartz Books, 2023

Synopsis

This autobiographical picture book by the multiple Grammy Award-winning singer Roberta Flack recounts her childhood in a home surrounded by music and love: it all started with a beat-up piano that her father found in a junkyard, repaired, and painted green.

Growing up in a Blue Ridge mountain town, little Roberta didn't have fancy clothes or expensive toys...but she did have music. And she dreamed of having her own piano.

When her daddy spies an old, beat-up upright piano in a junkyard, he knows he can make his daughter's dream come true. He brings it home, cleans and tunes it, and paints it a grassy green. And soon the little girl has an instrument to practice on, and a new dream to reach for--one that will make her become a legend in the music industry.

Here is a lyrical picture book--perfect for aspiring piano players and singers--that shares an intimate look at Roberta Flack's family and her special connection to music.

About this title

About the Author

Legendary singer Roberta Flack was known for her number one singles "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song," "Feel Like Makin' Love," and "Where Is the Love" and "The Closer I Get to You," two of her many duets with Donny Hathaway. She was the recipient of thirteen Grammy nominations, four of which she won, as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She passed away in 2025 at the age of 88.

Tonya Bolden is the award-winning author/co-author/editor of more than two dozen books for young people. They include Finding Family, which was a Kirkus Reviews and Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year; Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book; MLK: Journey of a King, winner of a National Council of Teachers of English Orbis Pictus Award; and Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln and the Dawn of Liberty, an ALSC Notable Children's Book and CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People. Tonya also received the Children's Book Guild of Washington, DC's Nonfiction Award. A Princeton University magna cum laude baccalaureate with a master's degree from Columbia University, Tonya lives in NYC.

Hayden Goodman is a painter and children’s book illustrator born and raised in the wilderness of Western Massachusetts. Her clients include the New Yorker, the New York Times, MIT, and Garden & Gun. The Green Piano is her debut picture book.

Reviews

Gr 2-5-With lilting text and stunning art, Flack's lovely autobiographical picture book highlights little Roberta's passion for music and the love of a family with little means who supported their daughter's big dreams. "I'd use my elbows on the ebonies/ because my fingers were too short./ Mother and Daddy were so tickled by that-/ and so proud too." The rhythmic and inviting narrative shares how her father found an upright in the junkyard, rescued it, and painted it green. The rest is history. In her picture book debut, Goodman's mixed-media illustrations are dazzling; there is joy on every page. From cozy family scenes to expansive skyscapes, light shines through in each spread. Curvy lines lend a feeling of musicality and wholeness to the art. Back matter includes an author's note expanding on Flack's musical career, from teaching music at a junior high school to being discovered as pianist and singer at the restaurant she worked at part-time to recording her first album in 1969 and the Roberta Flack Foundation. It also features a list of career highlights, including mentions of her well-known "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Killing Me Softly with His Song." VERDICT A warm, soulful picture book autobiography about a living legend that will inspire burgeoning artists to pursue their dreams no matter their circumstances.-Shelley M. Diazα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Edition details

• Publisher: Anne Schwartz Books
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593479874
• ISBN 13: 9780593479872
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Goodman Hayden
• Number of pages: 40