This bilingual book allows young readers to enter Celia Cruz's life as she becomes a well-known singer in her homeland of Cuba, then moves to New York City and Miami where she and others create a new type of music called salsa.Customer Review: Queen of Salsa
Celia Cruz is brought to life for young children in this colorful book. Like the tropics from which she came, the book is full of vibrant illustrations. The story is put into simple terms for young readers or a teacher or parent to read. Since the illustrations are so vibrant and bold children will be enthralled by the unique features of the art work. Each biographical page is bilingual for reading in Spanish or English or both. The book describes her early family life in Cuba, her departure after the revolution, her musical group Sonora Mantacera, meeting her musician husband,her associations with other salsa greats like Tito Puente and Willie Colon, her relocation to Miami and the various honors and recognitions she achieved. This is a great little book for primary and middle school libraries as well as community libraries. Students whoose first language is Spanish can benefit from the bilingual book through middle school years. This is a fun book.
Customer Review: Wonderful!
My Name is Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz is written by Monica Brown and illustrated by Rafael Lopez. The book is the recipient of a Pura Belpre' Illustrator Honor Award for outstanding work that portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth. The exciting and inspirational life of beloved Cuban-born salsa queen, Celia Cruz, is celebrated in the bilingual book My Name is Celia Me Llamo Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz. Celia was born in Havana to a large family where their lives were intertwined and music was an important part of everyday life. Celia's papa wanted her to become a teacher but music filled her soul with happiness. She was encouraged by a teacher to "go out into the world and sing...." Celia experienced prejudice and fled her beloved country Cuba when the revolution began. From Cuba, Celia traveled the world sharing her love of music with the world. Rafael Lopez' illustrations are vibrant, fluid combinations of color that beg to be studied. The scenes fill the page and stir emotions as you read the story and live it through his drawings. Armchair Interviews says: My Name is Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz is a beautiful and educational addition to any child's library. We highly recommend it.
As many fans of music know, the lyrical parts of a song are usually the most important and integral pieces to a particular song or pieces success. Many times these words are the only part of a song that fans will remember or be able to recognize in an instant. In addition, it is common for artists to make the leap into becoming a superstar when they come out with great lyrics for their new hits. But the truth is that not every artist in the world who is selling CDs and concert tickets has great lyrics to their work, or any at all for that matter. You might be wondering, how can music be good without meaningful words, much less having no words at all? This article should help to answer that question and change the common notion that all great music must have unbelievable lyrics as well.
To start out with, it is important to realize that music is not just the songs a person can hear on a radio. In fact, the first pieces of music were almost exclusively played in a concert hall. In this setting, a group of different instruments play in unison to a conductors movements. There are no words because quite simply there doesnt need to be any. Some of the most famous musical work in the world, and oldest at that, is often played in this style. While not popular with the youth today, classical music, as it is often termed, often goes hand in hand with being upper-class. Whether this is a fair pairing or not, that is debatable. But this much is true, many people find deeper meaning and enjoy this style of music without looking for words to accompany they harmony of the instruments!
On the other hand, a popular selection at almost any night or dance club is techno music. Techno music is often generated on a computer, and combines wacky sounding drum beats and other instrumental sounds to make a song that sounds like it was electronically produced. This music has many different beats and often is extremely easy to dance to. While it can have words, it is more common for techno songs to be without any human voices, or to use them sparingly. Even with the absence of almost any words at all, however, techno music remains a popular choice on any dance floor and it would be hard to find a club that doesnt play at least one song. Indeed there are even some popular techno artists, whose main musical talents lie in creating new beats and remixing past billboard toppers!
All in all, it should be fairly obvious by now that a song doesnt have to have lyrics to be considered worth listening to. Many different types and genres of music embedded in our society today are, in fact, found without any words at all. Whether it be rich classical music that your grandparents listen to, or fast-moving techno music that you dance to, words are not as important as they may seem initially.
Joe Kenny is the webmaster at the free music lyrics website, with free music lyrics to N Sync songs. Visit today: http://www.lyricspost.net
90s dance music
No comments:
Post a Comment