Music for the End of Time - Hardcover

Bryant

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802852297 ISBN 13: 9780802852298

Publisher: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2005

Synopsis

Presents the story of how French composer Olivier Messiaen was able to overcome the desolation of a World War II prison camp through the power of music.

About this title

About the Author

Jen Bryant — writer, poet, biographer — has authored several books for young readers, including Thomas Merton: Poet, Prophet, Priest (Eerdmans), which was named to the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age List, and the young adult novel-in-verse The Trial (Knopf), a Junior Library Guild Selection. Jen lives in Uwchland, Pennsylvania.

Beth Peck has illustrated many books for children, including Just Like Josh Gibson written by Angela Johnson (Simon & Schuster); A Picture of Grandmother by Esther Hautzig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), an Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Honor Book; and Bicycle Madness by Jane Kurtz (Henry Holt). Beth Peck lives in Menomonie, Wisconsin.

From the Inside Flap

Eee oh lay! Eee oh lay!
Such a wild and beautiful sound,
Olivier thought.
His eyes followed the bird as it turned
toward the woods, floated over the treetops,
and, at last, disappeared.

Detained in a German prison camp, Olivier misses his family, his friends, and his home but most of all he misses music. A chance encounter with a nightingale and a German officer, however, provides Olivier with a small miracle the opportunity to write music again.

Jen Bryantâ s poetic biography of French composer Olivier Messiaen, coupled with Beth Peckâ s evocative pastel illustrations, captures both the desolation of a World War II prison camp and the transforming power of music. This book will stir readers of all ages to seek hope in the things that inspire them.

Reviews

Grade 3-5–A poignant story of humanity, creativity, and survival. Olivier Messiaen, a well-known French composer, was captured by the Germans during World War II and taken to a prison camp. In her softly flowing watercolor paintings, Peck portrays him as a pale, bespectacled man clutching a pack of sheet music. For an unexplained reason, a German officer allowed the musician to use a small room to continue to write. Although he wondered if anyone would ever hear his work, he pressed on, finally finding inspiration in the song of a nightingale. The illustration shows the notes rising from his pen in a triumphant arch intertwined with songbirds. With the arrival of two new prisoners carrying instrument cases, Messiaen gained hope. Finally, the composition was performed by a quartet in front of 5000 prisoners. Again, this moment is reinforced with a scene that shows the darkness of the winter day and camp enlightened by the music as the notes–presented in bands of yellow and entwined with nightingales–flow above the audience. Use this book with other stories of triumph over suffering, such as Ken Mochizuki's Baseball Saved Us (Lee & Low, 1993) or Louise Borden's The Greatest Skating Race (S & S, 2004). Better yet, play Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time as you read it.–Jane Marino, Bronxville Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gr. 4-7. Based on a true World War II incident that took place in 1941, this handsome picture book tells a story of kindness from the enemy and of the power of music. In the German camp Stalag 8A, a young officer allowed a captured French soldier, Olivier Messiaen, to compose music in a small room in the toilets, and then to play what he wrote (the now-famous composition "Quartet for the End of Time") with three other prisoners in a concert attended by 5,000 prisoners in the camp. The Germans found a run-down piano for Messiaen; they found a cello for another prisoner musician; two others were allowed to keep the instruments they brought with them. Bryant tells the fictionalized biography in clear poetic prose, and Peck's beautiful charcoal-and-pastel double-page spreads never downplay the harshness of the crowded barracks and the desolate lines of sad, sometimes wounded prisoners, even as they show the composer close up and the nightingales whose calls inspire the wild and beautiful music. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802852297
• ISBN 13: 9780802852298
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32