Features
- Reading level: Ages 4-8
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 32 pages
- Published by: Roaring Brook Press March 18, 2008
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 1596432764
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-1596432765
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Book Dimensions:
11.1 x 8.1 x 0.4 inches
- Weighs: 11.2 ounces
Product Review
Publishers Weekly - Starred ReviewArt sings on the pages of this visual celebration of Arabic calligraphy as Rumford’s (Sequoyah) collages of floral and geometric designs and flowing lines deftly echo Arabic language and patterns. “Writing a long sentence is like watching a soccer player in slow motion as he kicks the ball across the field, as I leave a trail of dots and loops behind me,” says narrator Ali, explaining his love of calligraphy. Spreads incorporating stamps, money and postcards reinforce the Baghdad setting and complement representational scenes, such as an intricate collage of Ali huddling under a blanket next to his cat, writing. Arabic words, translated in places, sometimes embed in the pages as part of the illustrations, even patterning Ali’s mother’s dress. Like his hero, the famed calligrapher Yakut, who wrote through the destruction of Baghdad in 1258 (“he shut out the horror and wrote glistening letters of rhythm and grace”), Ali turns to calligraphy during the bombing of Baghdad in 2003. In an eloquent ending, he discovers that while the word “war” flows easily, the pen “stubbornly resists me when I make the difficult waves and slanted staff of salam—peace.
Kirkus Reviews A boy’s ingenuous voice introduces American readers to the beauty and discipline of Arabic calligraphy in this mood piece set in Baghdad. Ali directly addresses readers, explaining how much he loves playing soccer and listening to loud music, and how he loves calligraphy even more: “my pen stopping and starting, gliding and sweeping, leaping dancing to the silent music in my head.” His hero is Yakut, a 13th-century calligrapher who took solace in his art amidst the Mongol invasion. Like Yakut, Ali finds comfort in practicing his letters during the turmoil that has reigned in Baghdad since 2003. Rumford’s sense of design is one of the keenest in the field; he incorporates patterned papers, collage elements and, over and over, the Arabic words themselves in his dusty, desert-colored spreads. The quiet text doesn’t dwell on politics or conflict, simply on one boy’s desire to find peace in his own life and how he uses calligraphy as a vehicle.
The Horn Book MagazineAli, a young boy growing up in contemporary Baghdad, likes soccer, loud music, and dancing. But more than anything, he loves to create the letters of Arabic calligraphy. He loves the right-to-left movement, the flow of the ink from his pen “stopping and starting, gliding and sweeping, leaping, dancing to the silent music” in his head. His hero is Yakut, the thirteenth-century calligrapher who is thought to have fled to a high tower to write and “shut out the horror” when his Baghdad was destroyed by war. In the first-person text, Ali is a boy any child can understand, and when he writes his sister’s name, Yasmin, and describes it as easy and gorgeous, we know he is expressing brotherly affection. Later, when he has no trouble writing harb, the word for war, but struggles to draw the word for peace, sala-m, readers will feel Ali’s pain for his country. Rumford’s mixed-media illustrations echo the collage work of Ezra Jack Keats and Patricia Polacco while still being all about the calligraphy. Told plainly and without bathos, this is one story of how people use art to find understanding. r.l.s.
Book Description
WHEN BOMBS BEGIN TO FALL, Ali drowns out the sould of war with a pen. Like other children living in Baghdad, Ali loves soccer, music and dancing, but most of all, he loves the ancient art of calligraphy. When bombs begin to fall on his city, Ali turns to his pen, writing sweeping and gliding words to the silent music that drowns out the war all around him. Gorgeously illustrated with collage, pencil and charcoal drawings and, of course, exquisite calligraphy, this timely and yet universal story celebrates art and history but also offers young children a way to understand all they see and hear on the news.
Reader Reviews
ALI is a schoolboy with a yen to play soccer and listen to loud music. Sound familiar? No surprises there. Now consider that Ali is a contemporary Iraqi boy who lives in Baghdad and has everyday acquaintance with most aspects of the war/occupation. The fearsome noises and sights of war send Ali to take refuge in his practice of calligraphy. James Rumford shows this in a somber 2-page spread while "one war has become another." The author-artist draws images of war from many sources - - yet, if readers open to any page they will ask themselves what writing can be more beautiful? James Rumford creates a three-generation family we can truly 'connect' with. Warm relationships are evidenced in his drawings. Watch Yasmin's name flow from Ali's pen, making another statement of rhythm and beauty. Experience the love flowing between grandfather or parents, and children. Ali finds it difficult to make the transition with his pen from the word War/HARB to Peace/SALAM. In Rumford's Persian-style graphic of an interlocking pattern in which birds escape there are suggestions of M. C. Escher's geometric fantasies such as "Dissolving Boundaries." James Rumford has created another song for Freedom. Art can make strong arguments for Peace, and each fragment of drawing or calligraphy in this splendid book makes me yearn to know and better appreciate this culture. It took only one glance at "SILENT MUSIC" to know it will be the recipient of many accolades more impressive than these words by mcHaiku.
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