The Mozart Season

by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Overview

"Remember, what's down inside you, all covered up—the things of your soul. The important, secret things . . . The story of you, all buried, let the music caress it out into the open."

When Allegra was a little girl, she thought she would pick up her violin and it would sing for her—that the music was hidden inside her instrument.

Now that Allegra is twelve, she believes the music is in her fingers, and the summer after seventh grade she has to teach them well. She's the youngest contestant in the Ernest Bloch Young Musicians' Competition.

She knows she will learn the notes to the concerto, but what she doesn't realize is she'll also learn—how to close the gap between herself and Mozart to find the real music inside her heart.

The Mozart Season includes an interview with author Virginia Euwer Wolff.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312367459
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	07/10/2007
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	937,634
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	690L (what's this?)
Age Range:	11 - 13 Years

About the Author

Virginia Euwer Wolff is an accomplished violinist and former elementary school and high school English teacher. Her first book for young readers, Probably Still Nick Swansen, was published in 1988 and won both the International Reading Association Award and the PEN-West Book Award. Since then she has written several more critically acclaimed young adult novels, earning more honors, including the National Book Award for True Believer, as well as the Golden Kite Award for Fiction and the Jane Addams Book Award for Children’s Books that Build Peace. Her books include Make Lemonade, The Mozart Season, This Full House and Bat 6. She lives in Oregon.

Editorial Reviews

It is a pleasure to have a novel of ideas for young adults that describes the delicate dance between honoring traditions of the past and being your own person in the present.” —Publisher's Weekly

“A book that will richly reward its readers.” —School Library Journal

“Her season of discovery—of Mozart, her own roots, and the creative balance between life's traumas and trivia—marks a fine achievement.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Gr 6-8-- Allegra Leah Shapiro is happily making the transition from seventh-grade softball season to summertime when she can concentrate on her violin lessons. At their first session, her teacher informs her that she has been chosen as a finalist in a competition for young musicians, probably the youngest of those selected. Allegra, a gifted violinist, plays in a youth orchestra in her hometown of Portland, Oregon, but she is also a three-dimensional, real 12-year-old who wrangles good-naturedly with her older brother, chafes at her parents' restrictions on late-night bike riding, is loyal to her friends, and is intensely curious about the world around her. As the summer progresses, several themes weave in and out of Allegra's consciousness and growth as she struggles with the Mozart concerto she will play in the competition. A strange dancing man who appears at outdoor concerts, the mysterious sadness surrounding her mother's friend Deirdre, and a very special gift from her grandmother in New York--all these find their way into Allegra's awareness and eventually into her own interpretation of the concerto. With a clear, fresh voice that never falters, Wolff gives readers a delightful heroine, a fully realized setting, and a slowly building tension that reaches a stunning climax at the competition. Like Patricia MacLachlan in The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt (1988) and Bruce Brooks in Midnight Hour Encores (1986, both HarperCollins), Wolff interweaves the themes of adolescence, music, and striving for excellence with great success. A book that will richly reward its readers. --Connie C. Rockman, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT

School Library Journal