Turn It Up! A Pitch-Perfect History of Music That Rocked the World

This ambitious book crams a lot of music history into a single volume. The first chapter begins with a definition (“Music is the pleasing arrangement of notes”), then moves at a quick clip through the first instruments ever made, monophony and polyphony, Indonesian gamelans, and the Baroque period. Busy pages hold text blocks punctuated by photos of objects, art, and musicians, alongside “listen up” icons calling out representative musical samples. It is notably inclusive: women and people of color appear throughout and in the “musical master” sections closing each chapter, and non-Western genres are covered. Even so, the narrative subsequently narrows toward a focus on various forms of American popular music; by the close, the artists seem united by one metric: “best-selling.” A sprawling introduction to music history. Ages 8–12. [em](Dec.) [/em]