Singing For The People

Every generation has their favorite music.  It's a reflection of a particular time and place in which people find themselves. These tunes are not necessarily focused in one specific genre but they do mirror an era.  More times often than not the music of one generation carries to the following generations. 

As a child or grandchild growing up and hearing the songs of a band or singer played repeatedly, it becomes a part of your lifelong personal musical playlist.  Strong memories are created.  There are also remarkable musicians whose music is timeless and ingrained in the history of a nation.  One of those men was Pete Seeger. The Golden Thread: A Song For Pete Seeger (Balzar & Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, April 17, 2018) written by Colin Meloy with illustrations by Nikki McClure will fill your heart with lingering melodies.

I heard there was a golden thread
A shining, magic thing
That bounded up our little world

---I HEARD PETE SEEGER SING!

Many ears heard and longed to hear the words of Pete Seeger as he championed the working person or care for Mother Earth.  His words and the tunes played on his five-string banjo echoed throughout our land, weapons to right wrongs.  You could easily say music surrounded Pete from the time he was born.  His family lived and breathed music.

As he grew so did his skill with his banjo.  He seemed to know what music was needed in any given situation; bringing spirit-lifting tunes to soldiers in World War Two and supporting the need for labor unions.  About this time, 1943, Pete married Toshi-Aline Ohta.  They were married until her death on July 9, 1943.

We Shall Overcome 

became a great anthem for the civil rights movement.

As a member of the group Weavers Pete Seeger and company took the Lead Belly song, Goodnight, Irene, making it a hit in 1950 for more than six months.  Also in 1950 a senator, Joseph McCarthy, started a campaign to rid the United States of alleged communists.  Pete Seeger was one of the accused.  He spoke before a political hearing but refused to give up his right to free speech.  Even though he was blacklisted, this man's voice still rang out in song all around the world.  Eventually he joined other vocal folk singers back in these United States giving strength to much needed causes.

Pete and Toshi built a home along the Hudson River which at the time was suffering from the ravages of neglect by humans.  This was something Pete could and did not abide.  A boat and a song rallied people.  As Pete Seeger's songs wove through the history of our nation (and the world) time did not stand still.  It moved.  Pete Seeger has been gone for more than four years but his music and his accomplishments will live as he did, with boldness, purpose and heart.

Ending as it begins with Pete Seeger singing at the Lincoln Memorial, Colin Meloy gathers words forming one lyrical poem after another and portraying the life of Pete Seeger with truth and beauty.  Each of the portions reads like a verse in the song of this man's life's work.  It's a harmonizing, rhythmic tribute to a remarkable soul. Here are several passages.

OH, PETE, PETE

When next we meet

We find you on a brimming street

The crowds, they're reaching

mountain-size

And you're teaching folks to

ORGANIZE!

ORGANIZE!

Preaching workers' rights to picket lines

At factories, farms, in copper mines

And speaking of union . . .

As threads have beginnings

So must they have ends

Just like a river in its bows and its bends

As it starts in the mountains and flows to the sea

It spreads the world over when it fin'lly breaks free

The illustrations starting with the matching dust jacket and book case were made as follows:

The artist took her own photos of Pete from filmed performances and used historical photos to make the images.  Artwork was created by cutting black paper with an X-Acto knife.  Golden paper was cut for additional layers of songs and backgrounds.  Fifty-eight blades and twenty-two pieces of black paper were used.

With marvelous, masterful talent Nikki McClure depicts Pete Seeger on the front of the jacket and case with animated realism.  He's getting ready to sing for America.  To the left, on the back, she has positioned his banjo and an axe.  The opening and closing endpapers are in the golden colored paper.  On a page prior to the title page we see the lower portion of Pete's chest and an arm carrying his banjo next to his walking legs.  In the other hand he has a hammer.  On the banjo we read:

THIS MACHINE SURROUNDS HATE AND FORCES IT TO SURRENDER.

With that hammer Pete tacks up a sign holding the text for the title page.  

A two page illustration beginning on the left with a seated Peter tuning his banjo winds to the right.  A golden thread from the banjo expands to a banner on the right reading THE GOLDEN THREAD.  Above this are the dedications. 

Nikki McClure alternates between two-page pictures and single page images.  Within one of these illustrations she can and does shift her perspective.  A golden thread, like a banner, weaves through each picture.  These threads contain the words to a song Pete Seeger was known for singing.  With every page turn you will be amazed at the fine details she includes.

One of my many favorite illustrations (My eyes fill with tears whenever I look at it.) is for the second passage I have noted.  On the left Pete's head is bowed next to Toshi's face and his hand rests on her body near her chin.  Both of their eyes are closed.  Her body extends over the gutter to form a river on the right on which a boat sails.  Two tiny figures are seen near the back.  The song in the golden thread is Turn Turn Turn. 

This summer the theme selected by Collaborative Summer Library Program is Libraries Rock! Pete Seeger and this title The Golden Thread: A Song For Pete Seeger written by Colin Meloy with illustrations by Nikki McClure will most definitely be a part of our selections.  This is a strikingly lovely book in words and images certain to resonate with all ages.  I highly recommend it for your personal and professional collections. 

Be sure to access the websites of Colin Meloy and Nikki McClure to learn more about them and their other work by following the links attached to their names.  You might enjoy the NPR show The Inspiring Force of 'We Shall Overcome'. Enjoy the book trailer with Colin Meloy speaking about this book.

Be sure to visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher and featuring titles selected by participants in the 2018 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

In The Land Of Dreams

Every parent wishes for their children a peaceful, deep rest each night.  Most will agree seeing their son or daughter (no matter their age) sleeping is perhaps the sweetest thing in the whole wide world.  It seems as though the bond between parent and child becomes even stronger in those moments; the act of sleeping is one of trust.   It's a condition when we are more vulnerable.

Caregivers may read favorite books aloud, insure treasured toys and cozy blankets are near or softly sing a beloved melody.  May The Stars Drip Down (Abrams Books For Young Readers, March 11, 2014) written by Jeremy Chatelain, a musician, with illustrations by Nikki McClure is a lullaby of love.  A boy's dreams are choreographed masterfully in words and torn and cut paper illustrations.

May the stars drip down light on you,
And you close your eyes to see the moon,
And sleep will pull you through.

From starlight the dreaming traveler walks across desert sands.  Winds shift the grains into new shapes.  Higher up they float to touch the stars, bathed in the light of the moon.

Caught in clouds a journey along a well-traversed trail in the mountains leads them along a lake.  Sounds of nature reach their ears.  Again a gentle breeze moves through the surrounding grasses.

In the distance lights in houses along the shoreline signal the close of day, giving way to darkness. Waves fall gently on the sandy beach.  The dreamer drifts over the ocean until dawn brightens a new day and words are softly spoken.


If you've ever stepped outside to see a nighttime sky filled with stars or a full moon illuminating the landscape, you can understand the calm conveyed in the chosen words of Jeremy Chatelain.  Each verse speaks to the tranquility found in certain natural settings; a desert, clouds coursing across a darkened sky, a mountain lake, a shore and expansive ocean stretching as far as the eye can see.  You can't help but feel the secure embrace conveyed in every line; the world is watching and taking care of its dreaming son delivering him home to his mother in the morning.


Every detail of this book has received the utmost attention by artist Nikki McClure.  The scallop-edged dust jacket covering only the lower portion of the book case are clouds across waving grasses, moths fluttering among them.  On the front a boy peeks over the top.  Beneath a full moon and stars a fox gazes outward on the back.

The two shades of blue and white on the cover continue on the opening endpapers.  A boy and his mother are nestled in his bed reading this book.  Noted items in his bedroom appear in later illustrations; an old bone, a starfish, a sea shell, a feather, an ocean, a stuffed toy fox and hand-made owl snuggly toy. The image on the title page a circle with blue dots (stars) acting as the background for the text is reversed on the first page.  Pinpoints are cut-out showing the lighter blue of the following page.

Each of the subsequent two-page pictures are absolutely breathtaking; stunning in every respect.  Nikki McClure chooses to shift her perspective from close-up views of faces and feet to panoramic vistas of desert, sky, a mountain and the ocean.  The boy's breath as he falls asleep in his mother's arms becomes stars. A feather floats across water under a setting moon.  When morning arrives a new color element in introduced into the illustrations, a soft, rich golden yellow.  The closing endpapers take readers back to the boy's bedroom.  A neatly made bed absent of him and his mother is ringed by all his boyhood treasures.

I would gladly frame any one of these gorgeous illustrations to hang in my home.  One of my favorites is the fox in the grasses around the mountain lake.  The serenity conveyed by the layout of an evergreen branch shadowed across the moon, stars circling outward toward a mountain in the distance is brilliant.  You can feel the gentle breeze and hear the crickets as the stillness reaches out to you.


Written by Jeremy Chatelain, May The Stars Drip Down, illustrated by artwork made with cut and torn black paper by Nikki McClure, should be on every bookshelf in homes and classrooms.  It's beauty will lull any reader into a state of harmony no matter the time of day.  The blend of text and illustrations is flawless.  I will be adding this title to my Mock Caldecott list for 2015.

Please be sure to follow the link embedded in Nikki McClure's name to her official website.  On the verso of the book a link is provided to download the song May the Stars Drip Down.  I've played it over and over and over.  You can hear a portion of it in the video below.