Customer Reviews

Elizabeth's Song

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Michael Wenberg's engaging and entertaining Elizabeth's Song is based upon the legendary African-American folksinger, guitarist and songwriter, Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten, and is beautifully enhanced with the superbly crafted artwork of Cornelius Van Wright. Elizabeth is an 11-year old girl who teaches herself to play guitar left-handed on a borrowed instrument. Eventually, she earns enough money to guy a guitar of her very own and is inspired to write her first folk song "Freight Train", which would go on to become a popular classic. It was Elizabeth's unique style of left-handed playing (upside down and backwards) that gave rise to the term "cotton-picking", and emerged as a guitar playing technique that would inspire a generation of musicians. Elizabeth's Song is a wonderful and prized addition to any family or community library picture book collection, and is especially recommended for an elementary school library's Black History collection.

My kids and I really enjoyed this book about Elizabeth Cotten and her self-taught way of playing the guitar.

While the story ends with the composition of "Freight Train," in fact Cotten was not "discovered" as a musician until much later in her life. According to the epilogue, from her mid-teens until her early 50s, Elizabeth almost gave up music -- she was busy with work and raising a family. In the mid-1940s, by chance she got to know the folk-singing Seeger family, and they encouraged her to pick up her guitar again. She released her first album in 1958, at the age of 66.

After my kids and I read this book, we wanted to hear her music. We bought the album Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes, which includes her famous composition as well as other folk songs that she learned as a child.

I have included this book in my online Gender Equality Bookstore.