How Sweet the Sound

“Listen to...” repeats Alexander and Palmer’s entrancing history of Black music. The account begins with an image of brown-skinned people dancing and drumming in “the motherland.” Page turns move the text forward in time, picturing people toiling in cotton fields (“Listen to the hymns”), singing in choir robes (“Listen to the Amazing Grace”), playing music near a railroad (“Listen to the deep blue-black moans”), and in another spectacular spread, performing (“Listen to the jazz”). Energetic text introduces doo-wop and rock, then funk and neo soul, including “the sonic innovators/ and the flamboyant inventors/ who rocked us around the clock.” Black musical greats populate dramatic, color-drenched muralistic pages, while street scenes commemorate the rise of hip-hop and rap, “the tough-times poetry of the streets talking.” And as the book winds down, music becomes the stuff of resistance, “the soundtrack of America... the sweet sound of a people/ surviving and thriving.” Extensive notes about each spread conclude. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)