Synopses & Reviews
A droll biography reveals the high notesand the low notesin the life of the worlds foremost composer of Baroque music.This is not your usual picture book biography. Nor was George Frideric Handel your everyday eighteenth-century composer. This witty and yet rigorously researched and accessible biography captures Handels essential spiritfrom a child who smuggled a clavichord into the attic to play music against his fathers orders to a young man who imported forty-five pounds of mountain snow to chill wine for a galaas well as his remarkable, enduring musical triumphs. But M. T. Anderson also shows Handels struggles and chronicles the illness, ill fortune, and despair that led to his greatest achievement, the Messiah. With impeccable detail and a wink at the reader, Kevin Hawkes illustrates the singular story of Handel and the music through which he lives on.
About the Author
M. T. Anderson is the author of the young adult novels THIRSTY and BURGER WUSS and a faculty member of Vermont Colleges MFA Program in Writing for Children. About HANDEL, WHO KNEW WHAT HE LIKED, he says, "As a child, I loved Handels music, because it seemed to suggest that humans are a noble race, full of reason and gentility. Then I got to high school."
Kevin Hawkes is the illustrator of a number of popular books for
children, including WESLANDIA, THE LIBRARIAN WHO MEASURED THE EARTH, MARVEN OF THE GREAT NORTH WOODS, and PAINTING THE WIND: A STORY OF VINCENT VAN GOGH. He says, "I loved illustrating this book, though it was quite a challengeHandels music is so beautiful and powerful, and his life was so complex. I hope Ive done him justice."