Chris Raschka (Yo! Yes?) adds another star quality jazz tribute to his roster with this picture book biography of Sun Ra (1914–1993), who claimed he "came from Saturn."
The biography most closely aligns with Raschka's Mysterious Thelonious, having started as a visual representation of Sun Ra's song "Dreaming," according to the author. (His picture book biography of Thelonious Monk as a visual rendering inspired by "Mysterioso" doubles as a musical score.) Monk, one of "the wise ones, like Dizzy Gillespie," gave his blessing to Sun Ra's music in the early 1960s ("Keep it up, Sonny... it swings!"). The author-artist twines together the otherworldly nature of Sun Ra's music ("It was the thing about the earth that was most like the stars") and also the gravity of the time in which he lived ("One thing puzzled Sun Ra. The earthlings insisted on sorting themselves into two varieties: the white variety and the black variety"). Horizontal lines show up in nearly every illustration, evoking a musical staff. One of the most striking pairings features an image of Sun Ra writing musical notation while, opposite, he reads in a library where the books resemble lines on a staff.
Always Raschka portrays the "Saturnian" as staying true to his beliefs--as a conscientious objector during World War II, as leader of an Arkestra that defied categorization, recording his music on an independent label and making his own clothes. This fascinating, understated biography will lead young readers (and their parents) to the work of an out-of-this-world musician and man. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness