The First Notes: The Story of Do, Re, Mi. Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton. Illustrated by Chiara Fedele. 2022. [November] 48 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: A thousandyears ago, in the small community of Pomposa, Italy, a boy named Guido was sent to a monastery to begin his schooling. In those days, a monastery was considered the best place to receive an education. The monks who lived and taught there were studious and wise.
Premise/plot: The First Notes is a picture book biography of Guido d'Arezzo, a Benedictine monk who invented musical notation. Guido loved music. Loved it. But it involved a lot of memorization. You learned a song by memory. There was no "reading" music--or "writing" music. There was no way to notate musical notes. Until Guido made a little discovery and invented his own way of writing music so others could read it.
My thoughts: Julie Andrews--and her daughter, Emma--have written the story of 'do, re, mi.' And though I never thought about the history of musical notation [and scales and such], I really loved reading this story. I found it fascinating. I learned so much.
© 2022 Becky Laney of Young Readers
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