Tchaikovsky Discovers America

Aided by elegant, realistic oil paintings, this work (which is based on a recording by Douglas Cowling) makes a graceful leap to print. The story unfolds through the diary entries of 11-year-old Eugenia Petroff, the daughter of Russian emigres living in New York in 1891. Weaving historical fact (Tchaikovsky's visit to America toward the end of his life) with fiction (Eugenia and her family), Kalman creates a believable tale that, like Barbara Nichol's Beethoven Lives Upstairs, sheds light on a great composer and his times. Eugenia meets the composer on a train to Niagara Falls, and they strike up a brief friendship. She discovers that he suffers from homesickness, he tells her the story of Swan Lake and they talk of their mutual love of ballet. The illustrators, who previously collaborated on I Heard My Mother Call My Name, greatly enrich Kalman's already fluid prose with their sweeping landscapes, intimate portraiture and interesting perspectives (at one point, readers find themselves looking over Tchaikovsky's shoulder as he makes sketches for the Nutcracker). As an introduction to one of classical music's greats, this one strikes all the right chords. Ages 5-8. (Mar.)