Building an Orchestra of Hope

How Favio Chavez Taught Children

to Make Music From Trash

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Eerdman's Books for Young Readers

(pub.10.25.2022) 44 pages

Author: Carmen Oliver

Illustrator: Luisa Uribe

Character: Favio Chavez

Overview:

" In Cateura, Paraguay, a town built on a landfill, music teacher Favio Chavez longed to help the families living and working amid the hills of trash. How could he help them find hope for the future? Favio started giving music lessons to Cateura’s children, but soon he encountered a serious problem. He had more students than instruments!

But Favio had a strange and wonderful idea: what if this recyclers’ town had its own recycled orchestra? Favio and Colá, a brilliant local carpenter, began to experiment with transforming garbage into wonder. Old glue canisters became violins; paint cans became violas; drainpipes became flutes and saxophones. With repurposed instruments in their hands, the children of Cateura could fill their community—and the world—with the sounds of a better tomorrow."

Tantalizing taste:

" In a vacated school yard, Fabio taught thirty children how to play their recycled instruments, and how to read music... During the rainy season, they shuffled into the deserted classrooms, and Favio conducted. They practiced and practiced and practiced. Finally, the time came to perform for their parents, who had never heard the children play... Parents shed happy tears."

And something more: The back matter of the book states that "Today, the orchestra has performed in many countries including Argentina, Canada, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and the United States... In April 2018, the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura participated in a charity concert in Spain and earned money to help build a community health center in Banado Sur. The orchestra has also worked to bring more art and culture into the area with mosaics splashed on building walls...They work to make connections between different worlds and improve the lives of those who live and breathe and make music in Paraguay. As Favio has said: 'Music is the bridge.'"

Cut!

How Lotte Reiniger and

a Pair of Scissors

Revolutionized Animation

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Greenwillow Books

(HarperCollins Publishers)

(pub.1.24.2023) 40 pages

Author: C.E. Winters

Illustrator: Matt Schu

Character: Lotte Reiniger

Overview:

" Long before Walt Disney, a young woman revolutionized the landscape of animation using light, a pair of scissors, and her imagination.

In the 1920s, when young women had limited opportunities, Lotte Reiniger used her curiosity and ingenuity to change the landscape of animation forever. Inspired by the films of her youth, and encouraged by teachers and mentors working in film at the time, Lotte Reiniger honed her skills in cutting out paper silhouettes to use in stop-motion animation.

Eventually, her talent and her drive led her to invent the multiplane camera, which allowed her to give her animation depth of field. With her small team, Lotte designed and directed the oldest full-length animated film in existence."

Tantalizing taste:

"Lotte would make approximately sixty silhouette films over the course of her long life... She created every single one of those films using a pair of scissors, a great deal of patience, and her talented hands. Her trailblazing ideas and silhouette style influence filmmakers and artists to this day."

And something more: C.E. Winters in the Author's Note explains that "My hope in writing this book is to bring Lotte Reiniger out from the shadows of history to set the record straight about her contributions to the field of animation, and to inspire young artists and inventors to let their imaginations soar well beyond traditional limits - just as Lotte did."

Celia Planted A Garden

The Story of Celia Thaxter

and Her Island Garden

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Candlewick

(pub.5.17.2022) 40 pages

Authors: Phyllis Root and Gary D. Schmidt

Illustrator: Melissa Sweet

Character: Celia Thaxter

Overview:

" Celia Thaxter grew up on a desolate island off the coast of Maine, where her father worked as lighthouse keeper. Amid the white and gray of the sea, the rocks, and even the birds, young Celia found color where she could: green mosses and purple starfish and pink morning glories by the shore. And she planted her first garden, tucking bright marigolds between rocky ledges. When she was twelve, Celia’s family moved to nearby Appledore Island, where her father built a large hotel, and Celia planted a bigger, ever-growing garden with nearly sixty types of flowers, from asters to wisteria.

Guests flocked to the hotel from around the world, among them such writers as Longfellow, Whittier, and Hawthorne. Celia had been writing poems about the island, her garden, and the sea, and they would be printed in magazines and books, making her a foremother of writing about nature. "

Tantalizing taste:

" In the springtime, after long winters, Celia sailed back to Appledore, carrying the seedlings to plant her garden. Year after year, she planted. She planted pansies, sweet peas and hollyhocks, dark larkspurs and foxgloves, and tall sunflowers and red dahlias and nasturtiums and golden California poppies - and yellow marigolds. All summer long the flowers blossomed and brightened the island, pretty as a poem, pretty as a painting. All summer long the birds were at home in her garden - and even her house."

And something more: A Note on Celia Laighton Thaxter at the back of the book explains: "In the middle of her most famous poem, 'Land-Locked,' Celia Thaxter wrote, 'Have patience, - here are flowers and songs of birds, / Beauty and fragrance, wealth of sound and sigh, / All summer's glory thine from morn till night, / And life too full of joy for uttered words.' If Celiz Taxter were to summarize her entire life in a single stanza, she might have chosen this one.

...Publishers encouraged Celia to write about her childhood ... and then to write about her garden on Appledore... Today, though the buildings she knew on Appledore burned down over a century ago, the garden has been re-created on the island on which she is buried, and with which she will forever be linked."