As Glenn As Can Be

Written by Sarah Ellis

Illustrated by Nancy Vo

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-468-0

40 pp.

Ages 4-8

April 2022

Who was Glenn Gould? To many adult Canadians, he was the classical pianist whose interpretation of Bach's Goldberg Variations is beyond comparison. For others, he is a bronze cast on a bench in front of Toronto's CBC building, where a studio is named for him. And to the world, he is a musical genius. But how did Glenn Gould become one of the world's finest musicians and also a man of some mystery? Now, with As Glenn As Can Be, young readers will know him as well.

From As Glenn As Can Be by Sarah Ellis, illus. by Nancy Vo

As a child and an adult, Glenn knew what he liked and didn't like. While these might seem incongruous at times, they made perfect sense to Glenn. He liked boats and being on the water but he didn't like fishing. He liked word play and pranks and humour but he didn't like when it was used to bully or humiliate. He liked the outdoors and nature but not the cold that came with it. (He might wear a coat, scarf, cap and gloves to the beach in summer to avoid it.) He liked reading and learning, but not school. And he had a love-hate relationship with rules. Rules that dictated math and puzzles and music were much appreciated. But rules that squashed him were not.

From As Glenn As Can Be by Sarah Ellis, illus. by Nancy Vo

But he loved playing the piano. 

Playing the piano is when Glenn gets to be totally and completely Glenn.

And everyone wanted to hear him play in concert. All over the world he was heralded as the virtuoso he was. Problem was that there were times when Glenn didn't want to perform. He didn't like the crowds who made noises, and coughed and sneezed. He didn't like cold concert halls. Finally Glenn found a way to make the music he and others loved while being true to his own likes and needs.

From As Glenn As Can Be by Sarah Ellis, illus. by Nancy Vo

Glenn Gould has always been a bit of an enigma to those who didn't know him well.  His passion for his music and playing of the piano were paramount to him but performance to large audiences did not support his needs for quiet, solitude and more. Instead of playing up his perceived eccentricities, Sarah Ellis lets us see Glenn Gould as a child and then an adult with likes and dislikes that direct his choices and preferences. She helps us all see him as human, and acknowledges that young children may feel different at times or be perceived as such but that doesn't mean they are less than others. Sarah Ellis demonstrates such a sensitivity to Glenn Gould's challenges of balancing what he likes and doesn't like that he only comes across as brilliant. Period. There is no "in spite of" anything or judgements. He was as Glenn Gould could be: exceptional in his art, individual in his likes and dislikes, and forthcoming in his needs. 

Vancouver's Nancy Vo's earlier picture books, The Outlaw and The Ranger, hinted at the greatness that she would bring to an picture book biography of Glenn Gould. Using pen and watercolour with acetone transfer, Nancy Vo has given gravitas to the story of Glenn Gould, not unlike the man himself. Emphasizing the earthy tones of browns, greys and blues, with only occasional splashes of gold, Nancy Vo gives Glenn Gould's life a weightiness–though not heaviness–that is occasionally brightened with light. It's easy to see Glenn as a child, listening to the radio during WWII, spending time with his many pets and engrossed in his piano playing. 

From As Glenn As Can Be by Sarah Ellis, illus. by Nancy Vo

As Glenn As Can Be cannot possibly tell us everything about Glenn Gould, though Sarah Ellis's afterward and notes to help kids and adults learn more about him bring us a little closer to understanding him better. It's easier to appreciate a great man when we can witness how he balanced his needs and wants against his dislikes and obligations. Though As Glenn As Can Be doesn't speak about the end of his life, it is reassuring to know that the music that he made and made him will live on for generations, and now this book will help do that too.

Mr. Mergler, Beethoven, and Me

Written by David Gutnick

Illustrated by Mathilde Cinq-Mars

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-059-9

32 pp.

Ages 7-10

Mach 2018

If this was June 21, Mr. Mergler, Beethoven, and Me would be a valuable tome for International Music Day.  If it was December or March, we could acknowledge Beethoven’s birthday or death with this picture book.  But in February, this wonderful story about a music teacher and his student celebrates embracing one’s passion, here a love of music.

From Mr. Mergler, Beethoven, and Me 

by David Gutnick 

illus. by Mathilde Cinq-Mars

This is the story, inspired by true events, of a young girl and her parents who have just immigrated to Canada from China.  While the child swings in the park, her father chats with an elderly man whom he introduces to his daughter as Mr. Daniel Mergler, a man who has taught piano to hundreds of children over more than fifty years.  Though the family obviously does not have money for extras such as piano lessons, Mr. Mergler sees something in the young girl who had taught herself sufficiently well to play for their church. 

Something tells me she understands the magic that music can bring to her life.  If she does, that is all the payment I will need.

From Mr. Mergler, Beethoven, and Me 

by David Gutnick 

illus. by Mathilde Cinq-Mars

At Mr. Mergler’s studio, the child begins her lessons with the elderly man, while a bust of the stern-looking Beethoven looks down from his perch upon the piano.  Though she finds reading music and the lessons difficult at first, she progresses well and is the recipient of many gold stars from her teacher who shares with her the magic of the music. 

But her time with Mr. Mergler is cut short after "twenty-six magical lessons" when the man falls ill and pens a moving letter to his “star pupil” and bequeaths her his Beethoven bust. 

Mr. Mergler, Beethoven, and Me has all the elements to inspire.  There is music, and passion, and determination and effort and empathy.  In less than a year, one man found a seed of music in a young girl and nurtured it into a skilled talent, demonstrating the ability of music to make time disappear and touch the heart, even making the cranky Beethoven happy. Author David Gutnick takes this story from a documentary he produced for CBC's The Sunday Edition called “Beethoven’s Bust” (listen to it here http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2501123338) based on the dying piano teacher’s need to speak about the best student he’d ever had.  Accompanied by Quebec artist Mathilde Cinq-Mars’s soft and harmonious illustrations of gentle pencil colours and line, Mr. Mergler, Beethoven, and Me is a complete package of kindness and empathy: in actions, in the words and in the art.  Save it for International Piano Day (March 29) or maybe World Kindness Day (November 3). Or any day a little magic is needed.

From Mr. Mergler, Beethoven, and Me 

by David Gutnick 

illus. by Mathilde Cinq-Mars

Oscar Lives Next Door

A story inspired by Oscar Peterson's childhood

by Bonnie Farmer

Illustrated by Marie Lafrance

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-104-6

Ages 4-8

September 2015

Canadian jazz lovers will all know pianist Oscar Peterson very well.  But with Oscar Lives Next Door, author Bonnie Farmer and illustrator Marie Lafrance will introduce younger readers to the legendary musician and his musical beginnings while providing a glimpse into a less-than-famous life-changing event that sent the young Oscar to the piano.

Told from the perspective of Mildred, the little girl who lives next door to Oscar in the predominantly black community of Little Burgundy in Montreal, Oscar Lives Next Door focuses on the musical family of brothers and sisters of which Oscar is but the trumpet player.  Yes, the trumpet player.  And as much as she is Oscar’s playmate running the streets of Little Burgundy, Mildred sees Oscar as a magician of music.

He blows a few notes and, like magic, a turbaned genie curls out of the trumpet’s mouth and floats above the telephone wires. (pg. 13)

Then Oscar’s red handkerchief, a common accessory of horn players, which was usually flying out from the boy’s pocket, is drawn lying useless on the ground. Oscar is ill with tuberculosis and hospitalized, and the music, the play with Mildred, and even the talking stops for Oscar. It is only after a year’s hospitalization and his return home that Oscar tries to find the magic again,  first taking apart his trumpet and then looking within the family piano.

Oscar sits at the piano.  His fingers pause over the keys for a moment before playing.  When they finally touch the keyboard, it sounds like rolling thunder. (pg. 29)

While Oscar Lives Next Door is a fictionalized story, his love of the trumpet, his life-threatening illness (the same illness from which his brother dies), and his subsequent though temporary lack of speech were all key events in Oscar Peterson’s life, helping to create the pianist he became and for which the world loved him.  Bonnie Farmer gets the right tone of reality and fiction by creating a neighbourhood friend who experiences Oscar’s musicality–sometimes to the chagrin of her hard-working, sleep-deprived father–and is there to offer a child’s perspective on his music and his illness.

Be sure to take note of Marie Lafrance’s touching illustrations which transport the reader to the working-class neighbourhoods of Little Burgundy and adjacent Saint-Henri of the 1930s.  With the easily-identifiable Union Church and the train tracks, smokestacks and cars, trucks and horse-drawn carts, Little Burgundy comes alive and becomes the playground and home of Oscar and Millie and a character in its own.  Marie Lafrance, whose artwork has graced numerous youngCanLit classics (including The Tweedles Go Online and The Tweedles Go Electric reviewed here on CanLit for LittleCanadians) conveys a time and place when children could play safely on the streets, when music streamed the air, and life was full, following the seasons and the workings of fathers.  What a treat it would’ve been to have Oscar live next door.