Mary’s Idea

On the jacket of this rhyming verse telling inspired by the life of jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams (1920–1981), Raschka, in ink, oil pastel, and watercolor, paints the figure’s face and body seated at a piano. Inside, though, spreads center the figure’s hands, often poised over the keyboard, as reiterative text describes how “It was Mary’s idea”—“to play// the piano at three” as well as “to make// the songs, to lead the band.” The music she creates appears as ribbons of bright swatched squares emanating from the instrument. In a book that’s less conventional biography than hymn to Williams’s spirit, the leitmotif “It was Mary’s idea” underscores the musician’s charting her own course and making her own decisions, including one “to stop” playing before beginning again “for people, for God, and me”—a change visualized in swirls of color. Back matter supplies more about Williams’s life. Ages 4–8. (May)