Genre: Children's Biography
Subject: A look at the life and music of Duke Ellington and some members of his orchestra
I found this book to be a little bit disappointing for several reasons. I am a jazz music fan, and Ellington is one my favorite musicians. I also enjoy learning the history of great people. However, the style in which this story was written was very distracting. The book was written with a lot of jazz slang thrown in. I assume this was an attempt to make it feel authentic, but I think it did just the opposite. Using slang like that was acceptable during the jazz era, but this book was written in 1999, and I feel that the language is somewhat patronizing. The illustrations by Brian Pinkney are bright and vivid, but they essentially follow the story, which I've already said I wasn't fond of. I can't recommend this for a class reading, as I believe there are better examples of biographies about jazz musicians.
