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Daddy Played the Blues

Amazon.com Price:  $12.14 (as of 04/05/2019 23:54 PST- Details)

Description

*Notable Social Studies Trade Books Selection for Young People 2018*

“I used to be six years old the day we left the farm in Mississippi,” remembers Cassie on this richly textured picture book. “Between the boll weevils, the floods, and the landlord, there was once no way a circle of relatives could scratch out a living there anymore.”

Packing themselves into an old jalopy―with Daddy, Uncle Vern, and Mama in the front seat and Cassie and her two brothers in the back―they joined the Great Migration from the impoverished Deep South to Chicago, where there was once work available in the stockyards. Around the kids’ laps lay Daddy’s prized possession, a six-string guitar. Daddy worked hard to put food at the table, but what he in point of fact loved was once playing the blues. This evocative tale of the African-American odyssey on the lookout for a better life may be a homage to the uniquely American music that developed from African music and American spirituals, work songs, and folk ballads.

In the book’s backmatter, Garland relates how he first heard and fell in love with blues music, beginning a lifelong fandom. Portraits and thumbnail biographies of great blues musicians and landmark songs complete this tribute to the great American music and the yearnings that produced it.

Fountas & Pinnell Level S

Full Color


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