Music Everywhere by Maya Ajmera, Elise Hofer Derstine, and Cynthia Pon (review)

This latest offering from the Global Fund for Children (What We Wear, BCCB 3/12) celebrates music from around the world through vivid color photographs, a simple narrative line, and detailed captions. Musical topics include ways to use your body, (“We clap our hands and stomp our feet”), techniques (“We blow and whistle, pluck and strum”), and possible venues (at home, at the beach, at school). Of note is the diverse interpretation of music, where classically trained Venezuelan violin students are pictured a page away from Togolese kids banging rhythmically on the back of a chair; just as all-encompassing is the geographic reach of the photoessay, which touches on six continents and a variety of locales, from a U.S. community center to a West Bank camp for Palestinian refugees. Far more factual information is delivered in the photo captions than in the story itself; each description identifies what is happening in the photo and where the photo is taken. This bifurcated text makes a somewhat fragmented readaloud, but this is likely to get far more use as a browsing book, and children will love poring over the photographs of international music-makers. A two-page map of the world identifies featured countries and reiterates the equitable distribution of the book’s focus; additional supplemental materials include several pages of ideas on how to enjoy music and a glossary of terms from the text.