Product Description

A biography of the child prodigy who wrote more than 800 pieces of music before his untimely death at thirty-five.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #151697 in Books
• Published on: 1995-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

Review
"A great way to prepare children for the pleasure of a museum visit or a concert."

About the Author
Mike Venezia is the author of several nonfiction books for children.

Customer Reviews

Another great book in this series
Author Mike Venezia does a great job explaining biographies to children in a way that is both understandable and interesting. The writing style is not dumbed down or patronizing in tone. This is book is one in a series, others are about other musical composers and artists.

The first few pages explain what the musical climate was like in Mozart's life and explains how people used music for entertainment purposes. This is brief and a very good opening to put Mozart's life in perspective. The rest of the book is a full span of Mozart's life. Unlike other books for children about Mozart, the fact that Mozart was a boy genius is not the main content of the book. Oddly, Mozart's children are never mentioned. Mozart's marriage is briefly mentioned as is Mozart's death.

I have mixed feelings about the illustrations. I appreciated that the illustrations documented the various time periods of Mozart's life. I loved the illustrations that were photographs, fine drawings, or copies of fine paintings of the places Mozart visited, of Mozart and his family, and scenes of his operas. I did not at all like the eight cartoons whose illustrations and accompanying text were sarcastic and silly. These eight cartoons were completely out of character with the text of the book and I didn't appreciate them at all. My children and I have enjoyed other books by this author that did not have dumb cartoons and jokes. My children, aged 4 and 6 haven't needed these silly and sometimes insulting jokes to make the subject matter enjoyable. The interesting biography's text and other illustrations are high quality and are better off without these cartoons. The cartoons downgrade my rating to a 4.

I recommend this book and others by Mike Venezia to teach young children about important people in history.

Good Introduction
Like all of Venezia's books, this is a great introduction to the musician. The story is in simple to understand language so young children can easily grasp what is being explained. The only caution I would give is in regards to the "comics." Considering a few incidents I've had with my preschool aged children, I would advise people to make sure to emphasize the make believe aspect of these parts when reading them to the younger children.

For older children it is a great music appreciation lesson if you add some listening afterwards. With this book on Mozart I'd recommend listening to and reading about one of his opera's since at one point these are singled out for attention.

interesting and funny
I recommend all of these children's "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers" books. They are chocked full of information along with hilarious cartoons which keep a kid interested! Moviemaniac