Silent Night - Hardcover

Hooper, Maureen Brett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1563977826 ISBN 13: 9781563977824

Publisher: Boyds Mills Press, 2001

Synopsis

One of the world's most inspiring Christmas carols had its humble beginnings in a small village near Salzburg, Austria. Just before Christmas at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, organist Franz Gruber prepared to practice. But, instead of beautiful music, out came a terrible wheeze. Dampness had damaged the organ bellows. A Christmas Eve service with no organ music was unimaginable. On that Austrian eve in 1818, Father Joseph Mohr was preparing for the Christmas mass. As his thoughts filled with the first Christmas, he remembered a simple poem he'd written years ago. Father Mohr shared his poem with Gruber. Would the words be suited for a song accompanied by guitar? Maureen Brett Hooper provides a charming account of how the universally loved carol "Silent Night, Holy Night" was born, while Kasi Kubiak's soft oil paintings capture the magic of that holy night long ago.

About this title

About the Author:

Maureen Brett Hooper is the author of The Christmas Drum, The Violin Man, and Fun to Play Recorder Book, all published by Boyds Mills Press. She was a faculty member of the UCLA music department for more than twenty-five years and now resides in both Thousand Oaks and Mammoth Lakes, California.

Kasi Kubiak is the illustrator of The Nativity: Mary Remembers, by Laurie Knowlton. Ms. Kubiak is a portrait and mural artist who enjoys traveling the world for inspiration and research. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and lives in Houston, Texas.

From Booklist:

Ages 6-8. For a somewhat younger audience than Margaret Hodges' similar picture book Silent Night: The Song and Its Story (1997), this colorful volume also tells how the famous carol came to be written. To organist Franz Gruber's dismay, the organ that bellows at an Austrian village church gives out two days before Christmas in 1818. Father Joseph Mohr brings out a poem he has written and proposes that Gruber set it to music. Rising to the challenge, Gruber writes a tune, and the carol is sung in church on Christmas Eve. Hooper tells the story with clarity and warmth, embroidering a few details of conversation and home life. The heart of the book is not the successful performance of the carol, but Mohr and Gruber's quiet acceptance of their inspiration. The characters sometimes look a bit posed, though Kubiak's oil paintings demonstrate a good sense of narrative focus. With rounded forms and radiant highlights, the pictures are quite lovely in gradations and juxtapositions of colors. A good choice for reading aloud and discussing during Advent. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Boyds Mills Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1563977826
• ISBN 13: 9781563977824
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Kubiak Kasi