Summer Reading 2013 The Man with the Violin

The Man with the Violin by Kathy Stinson is based on a real event. A newspaper reporter wanted to conduct an experiment. He had the famous violinist, Joshua Bell, play music at a Metro station in Washington, D.C.  Mr. Bell played for nearly an hour, but only 7 people stopped to listen for more than a minute. He noticed that every child that passed by would try to stop, but the adults would always pull them on by. Ms. Stinson has written a story about boy named Dylan. He is a fictional character, but she describes what it would have been like to be a child listening to that beautiful music and having your mother tell you that you couldn't stop and hear more. She does a wonderful job and the illustrations show the way Dylan notices so many things that his mom and the other grown-ups do not. I especially like the way Dusan Petricic, the illustrator, shows the music flowing around all the people there in the station.

In the book trailer video, the author and illustrator tell us more about how they brought the story to life. On YouTube there is a video from the Washington Post, the newspaper that conducted the experiment. There is also a note from Joshua Bell at the end of the book, and the chance to download two of the songs he played that day.

I would recommend this to anyone who has ever tried to slow down and enjoy something, but been hurried along by their parents (or someone else). If you enjoy music, or stories of kids being right and adults not listening, you'll like this.