From School Library Journal
Grade 4–6—Set in Venice in the 1960s, this tale intertwines a famous violinist's boyhood reminiscences with the story of his parents' Holocaust experiences. Usually reticent Paolo Levi gives an interview to a young reporter and the story's narrator, answering the long-standing "Mozart question." When he was nine, Paolo badgered his mother into showing him the violin that was hidden away atop a cupboard, and she made him promise not to tell his father. The boy knew that Papa had once been a violinist, though he'd never heard him play. Soon after, Paolo became mesmerized by the music of Benjamin, a street performer. Longing to play himself, he secretly took the violin to Benjamin, who repaired it and gave him lessons. When the youngster finally confessed to his parents, they shared their own secrets: during World War II, the three adults were in the same concentration camp where they were forced to play music—mostly Mozart—for incoming prisoners to divert them from the horror that awaited them. After liberation, Papa vowed to never play again; however, Mama and Benjamin felt that music had saved them. When Paolo's parents heard how talented he was, they forgave his secrecy. The adult Paolo refused to play Mozart until after his father's death. Morpurgo breathes life into this touching tale, which is conveyed with compassion and honesty. Foreman's watercolors enrich the narrative, capturing both Venice's beauty and the camp's misery. This fine selection offers another view of the Holocaust and music's potential to heal.—
Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Survivor guilt is a dominant theme of many Holocaust stories: Why should I escape while others die? This spare, liberally illustrated novel is about a young reporter who discovers why a famous violinist, Paolo Levi, never plays Mozart. It’s the story of secrets kept from him until, at age nine, he discovers the reason his father, also a brilliant musician, set his instrument aside. Foreman uses shades of blue to mark the story’s beautiful Venice backdrop and sepia tones when visualizing Paolo’s father’s memories of living and nearly dying in a death camp, and how he and Paolo’s mother entertained the SS and played to calm prisoners on their way to the ovens. Of course, their music was mainly Mozart. Unlike Anita Lobel’s bitter memoir, No Pretty Pictures (1998), Morpurgo’s view of the survivors is a little too glowing, but for middle-grade readers, this novel will still serve as an honest, unsensational account of the horror. Grades 6-9. --Hazel Rochman
