Guitar

by Lori Haskins Houran, Kaly Quarles (Illustrator)

Overview

Turn it up! The newest addition to the nonfiction Eureka! series is a “biography” of guitars, an essential invention that gets people rocking.

With a timeline spanning from the first time someone strummed a string stretched across a hollow object to electric guitars that bring stadiums of people to their feet today, Guitar is a fun and informative look at the development of an invention that adds music to our lives. This STEAM nonfiction title is part of the Eureka! series, with each book focusing on one groundbreaking, world-changing discovery that millions of people use every single day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635928211
Publisher:	Astra Publishing House
Publication date:	04/04/2023
Series:	Eureka! The Biography of an Idea
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.06(w) x 8.06(h) x 0.14(d)
Lexile:	AD640L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Lori Haskins Houran is a former editor and the author of more than fifty books for kids, including Next to You, Too Many Dogs, and My Little Golden Book About George Washington, as well as Glasses and Bicycle in the Eureka! series.

Kaly Quarles studied interior design and art in college, and her love for architecture, collage, and branding gives her work a graphic appeal. She works digitally, using shapes and loose textures to create rich illustrations with vibrant colors. Guitar is her first book for kids.

Editorial Reviews

"Playing to younger audiences and broad enough to include riffs on the Mesopotamian oud, central Asian tanbur, and the nyatiti...Houran traces the guitar’s development. Nods to inventors from Antonio de Torres Jurado to George Beauchamp as well as a labeled diagram of parts and a cutaway view of an acoustic body offer...specifics about how basic guitar design evolved." —Kirkus Reviews

"Aimed at kids in early elementary grades, these brief titles trace the development of an object or concept through history, from very early examples to modern-day iterations...[B]oth books employ straightforward, accessible language and detailed illustrations that feature diverse casts of individuals enjoying the cited examples in addition to supporting technical descriptions…both titles do an effective job of introducing their subjects and encouraging kids’ curiosity.” —Booklist on Guitar and Wind Power

From the Publisher

2022-12-14
A quick history of one of the world’s most popular musical instruments.

Playing to younger audiences and broad enough to include riffs on the Mesopotamian oud, central Asian tanbur, and the nyatiti—though placing the last generically in “Africa” and otherwise sticking to European and American settings—Houran traces the guitar’s development. Starting with prehistory, her account ends, perhaps prematurely, with the boost electric guitars gave to rock and roll in the 1950s, but that accords with her general theme about how solutions were sought and found in recent times for making the instrument loud enough to be heard in ensembles. Quarles opens with a racially diverse group of people (one in a hijab) listening to recorded music but continues with scenes of musicians who vary in terms of race, gender, and historical era actually playing guitars of various design before closing with an equally inclusive if perfunctory gallery of six “Guitar Greats,” from Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Nancy Wilson. Young strummers will find a more thorough overview of guitar types as well as how the instruments are made and played in Patricia Lakin’s Guitar (2021), but here nods to inventors from Antonio de Torres Jurado to George Beauchamp as well as a labeled diagram of parts and a cutaway view of an acoustic body offer at least some specifics about how basic guitar design evolved. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A flurry of bright if sketchy lines, tuned more for budding historians than for musicologists or musicians. (Informational picture book. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews