Chris Raschka reviews

Chris Raschka  Charlie Parker Played Be Bop; illus. by the author
    Jackson/Orchard Books/Watts
    Reviewed 11/92
Raschka, himself a musician, has created a memorable tribute to jazz great Charlie Parker in this rhythmic, syncopated, compelling, funny celebration of a man and a musical form. The brief text sings and swings and skips along, practically of its own volition, while the pictures add humor and just the right amount of jazziness to the mix. Warning! Once read, it’ll be difficult to leave alone; the words and rhythm keep poking at your brain and won’t quiet down. “Charlie Parker played be bop. Never leave your cat alone.” And a fine, flat-eared feline he is, that cat — waiting for Charlie with a baleful glance for the reader. One of the most innovative picture books of recent times. Elizabeth S. Watson

Chris Raschka  Yo! Yes?; illus. by the author
    Jackson/Orchard Books/Watts
    Reviewed 5/93
The second picture book by the innovative author of Charlie Parker Plays Be Bop (Orchard) is as delightful and fresh as his debut. In just thirty-four words and companion illustrations, Raschka tells a story of the discovery of friendship and the joys and insecurities which go along with reaching out. An African-American boy, dressed in baggy shorts and unlaced sneakers, calls "Yo!" to a Caucasian boy who is shyly edging off his page. Their terse but emotionally loaded exchange continues as the shy boy admits to having no friends and the more outgoing child offers friendship. Their acceptance of each other is celebrated on the final page with a high five and the single word "Yow!" Raschka exhibits an appreciation of the rhythms of both language and human exchange in his deceptively simple story. The boys appear on facing pages, physically separated, until the final two pages in which they cross boundaries to choose friendship over isolation. The watercolors reveal a range of human feelings, which Raschka reinforces with his hand lettering. Words change size and color to emphasize emotion and volume. The story demands to be read aloud and will have listeners acting out the universal drama. Maeve Visser Knoth

Chris Raschka  Mysterious Thelonious; illus. by the author
    Orchard
    Reviewed 1/98
In another paean to a jazz master (see also Charlie Parker Played Be Bop), Raschka offers a tribute to the music of jazz pianist-composer Thelonious Monk that reverberates with color and pulses with a sinuous rhythm.

This is a story about Thelonious Monk and his music.
There were no wrong notes on his piano had no wrong notes, oh no. . . .
He played the music of freedom.
Jazz is the music of freedom.
This is a picture about his music. . . .

On each spread we see Monk and his piano on a penciled grid reminiscent of Mondrian. The text at first appears to be randomly placed on the page, each syllable in its own colored block on the grid. A closer look reveals that the color and placement of each block is significant: the twelve tones of the chromatic scale (do, re, mi, etc.) have each been assigned a color and a vertical position on the page, making it possible to “hear” the book (to the tune of Monk’s haunting “Misterioso”). For many, this book will remain an enigmatic if alluring puzzle. But for those who can make the music, Raschka’s fresh inventive use of color, rhythm, and melody will sing in a book that really does evoke the original inspiration. Elizabeth S. Watson

Chris Raschka  John Coltrane’s Giant Steps; illus. by the author
    Jackson/Atheneum
    Reviewed 9/02
“Good evening. And thank you for coming to our book. We have something very special for you tonight. It’s John Coltrane’s marvelous and tricky composition, ‘Giant Steps,’ performed for you by a box, a snowflake, some raindrops, and a kitten. Why not stay and see it?” As with Raschka’s other jazz books, we are thrown right into a world in which paint, composition, and color don’t just depict music, they become the musical experience. Large, square pages show simple translucent watercolor shapes that change color throughout. First, blue and white raindrops (the drum set) march across a spread setting a simple rhythm. Next, the box’s red and yellow shapes indicate the acoustic bass, overlapping with the raindrops’ colors to form purple and green. Turn the page and there’s the snowflake (piano) added to the composition: a spread both loose and structured, showing every color of the rainbow. The stage is set for the entrance of Coltrane’s sax, a calligraphic outline of a cat in black watercolor. “Here’s our kitten. She’s the melody on top of everything. Watch her take some giant steps across the page.” This is all very cool and the sort of innovation we now expect from Raschka. Then comes the stroke of genius: the performers mess up! The ensemble crashes in a heap, so the narrator/director speaks to each in turn: “First of all, raindrops, you were rushing . . . Your drops were much too close together. Keep in mind, when you hear John Coltrane playing, no matter how fast he’s going, he always sounds relaxed. It’s as if he made time bigger.” The previous pages showed jazz to the visually and emotionally oriented. Now the director’s discussion — complete with an exact reproduction of the spread where the problems started — throws light on the subject for those who are verbally and analytically inclined. After hearing the little pep talk, the quartet tries again and performs beautifully to the end. “Bravo, everyone.” Like Coltrane, Raschka is creating something deeply personal here that we don’t need to understand fully to appreciate. Instead, he asks us to trust our own understanding of raindrops, snowflakes, kittens, and music to experience the book. Anyone who’s still intimidated by jazz after giving this book a chance is probably just trying too hard. Lolly Robinson

Paul B. Janeczko, selector  A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms; illus. by Chris Raschka
    Candlewick
    Reviewed 5/05
Janeczko writes, “Knowing the rules makes poetry — like sports — more fun, for the players and spectators alike.” This smart new collection, assembled by the creators of A Poke in the I (rev. 7/01), beautifully introduces the rules of poetry on a variety of literary playing fields. The poems — ranging from light verse (“Kitchen crickets make a din, / sending taunts to chilly kin, / ‘You’re outside, but we got in’”) to a Shakespearean sonnet (number twelve) and an accompanying parody — are arranged by form, with tercet, haiku, acrostic poem, limerick, roundel, double dactyl, epitaph, and aubade among the twenty-nine included. Each poem appears along with a small pictorial mnemonic (there’s an urn for ode, a pair of birds for couplet) up in one corner of the page, an unobtrusive sentence describing the form, and a bright, full-color illustration that decorates but never dictates meaning. The back matter consists of expanded notes on and explanations of each form. The title poem (an example of concrete poetry, by Joan Bransfield Graham) proclaims that “poetry jumpstarts…imagination”; this book shows how that’s done. Betty Carter

Norton Juster  The Hello, Goodbye Window; illus. by Chris Raschka
     di Capua/Hyperion
     Reviewed 7/05
“Nanna and Poppy live in a big house in the middle of town.” In Juster’s paean to loving grandparents, the young narrator relates the small, comforting routines she shares with her grandparents when she visits, from coloring at the kitchen table to counting stars with Nanna to finding all the raisins Poppy hides in her breakfast oatmeal. The quiet, gently humorous first-person narrative presents a very young child’s worldview (“when I get tired I . . . take my nap and nothing happens until I get up”); occasionally, an adult perspective intrudes (“You can be happy and sad at the same time, you know. It just happens that way sometimes”). The familial love that is Juster’s subtext finds overt expression, spectacularly, in Raschka’s illustrations — lush mixed-media creations saturated in watercolor and pastel crayon and set off perfectly by white space. In paintings that are freewheeling yet controlled, Raschka incorporates tight circular scribbles (for the little girl’s and Nanna’s hair, for bushes, for clouds), solid shapes (for furniture, for floors); thick strokes of watercolor (for trees, for the door that separates the little girl and her grandparents when her parents come to take her home); and a black line that outlines occasional objects — everything from Poppy’s glasses to electrical outlets to a flower Nanna picks. A varied layout, balancing exterior and interior landscapes with smaller character vignettes, helps sustain the book’s energy. Say hello to Raschka at the top of his form. M.V.P.

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