The Green Piano

February 1, 2023
Grades K-3 Before Roberta Flack was a five-time Grammy winner, she was a little girl in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. With Coretta Scott King Author honoree Bolden, Flack describes her formative years in this lovely, affirming picture-book biography. While young Flack didn't have "richy-rich things," she did have the gift of music through two musically inclined parents, her church, and her budding talent. But her dream was to have her own piano. After the family moves to a Black community in Virginia, Flack's father finds a small, beat-up upright piano in a nearby junkyard. After the family lovingly repairs it and paints it green, Flack not only realizes her immediate dream but also uses it to propel her into a career in music. Goodman makes her debut here with cheery illustrations that feature bright, swirling greens that accentuate Flack's treasure and her talent. Although Flack gives a few details about her later success as a musician in an author's note, the focus remains on young people realizing their own dreams.

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Starred review from February 6, 2023
Music proves “My treasure./My gold” in this autobiographical picture book centering singer Roberta Flack (b. 1937). Raised without “fancy-fine clothes,/ high-priced toys,/ or other richy-rich/ things,” Flack grew up in a musical household in Asheville, N.C., “tap-tap-tapp out tunes/ on tabletops,/ windowsills,” and dreaming of owning a piano. After the family moves to Green Valley, Va., Flack’s father spots an “old, ratty, beat-up, weather-worn, faded” piano in a junkyard, and as he fixes it up and paints it a “grassy green,” Flack’s dreams swell from piano lessons to a whole life “wrapped up in/ the majesty,/ the magic/ of music.” Focusing on childhood dreams realized through persistence and effort, Flack and Bolden employ spare, matter-of-fact verse to share the story of this initial piano and the hope it represented. Goodman’s digitally finished gouache portraits highlight young Flack and her piano with pops of green and gold, while swirling tendrils of color represent musical sound. An author’s note and “career highlights” timeline conclude. Ages 4–8.

Starred review from March 1, 2023

Gr 2-5-With lilting text and stunning art, Flack's lovely autobiographical picture book highlights little Roberta's passion for music and the love of a family with little means who supported their daughter's big dreams. "I'd use my elbows on the ebonies/ because my fingers were too short./ Mother and Daddy were so tickled by that-/ and so proud too." The rhythmic and inviting narrative shares how her father found an upright in the junkyard, rescued it, and painted it green. The rest is history. In her picture book debut, Goodman's mixed-media illustrations are dazzling; there is joy on every page. From cozy family scenes to expansive skyscapes, light shines through in each spread. Curvy lines lend a feeling of musicality and wholeness to the art. Back matter includes an author's note expanding on Flack's musical career, from teaching music at a junior high school to being discovered as pianist and singer at the restaurant she worked at part-time to recording her first album in 1969 and the Roberta Flack Foundation. It also features a list of career highlights, including mentions of her well-known "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Killing Me Softly with His Song." VERDICT A warm, soulful picture book autobiography about a living legend that will inspire burgeoning artists to pursue their dreams no matter their circumstances.-Shelley M. Diaz

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2023
This engaging picture-book memoir by multiple-Grammy-winner Flack, known for such 1970s megahits as "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Killing Me Softly with His Song, " opens with young Roberta's early childhood. She describes it as filled with musical inspirations (her parents played harmonica and organ; she listened to classic songs on the radio) and dominated by her love of the piano and the dream of owning one. Flack's story finds its focus when her daddy brings home a piano from a junkyard ("old, beat-up, weather-worn, faded...and it stank!"), cleans it up, tunes it, and paints it green. Flack's delight in making music is at the center of the story, as she describes the joy she takes at playing her piano and her hours and hours of practice, with her success as an adult musician shown only briefly as the "­bigger dream" that her dedication made possible. That delight in making music is evident throughout in ­Goodman's gouache illustrations, which show Flack's face shining ecstatically when she plays; Goodman fills those pages with joyful green swirls, as if the essence of that beloved green piano is escaping into the air. An author's note from Flack adds more details and a list of career highlights completes the book. Laura Koenig

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from October 15, 2022
Singer Flack looks back on her childhood. The titular piano, rescued from a junkyard for the 9-year-old prodigy, serves as a memorable central image, but the memoir the renowned singer and co-author Bolden weave around it is really about the joys of growing up in a musical family and turning musical dreams into reality through years of listening, practice, and study. Identifying her parents, siblings, and music teachers by name as she goes, Flack vivaciously recalls first her excitement as her father and mother painstakingly fixed up the "old, / ratty, beat-up, / weather-worn, / faded, / stained, / stinky" instrument ("I couldn't wait, couldn't wait, couldn't WAIT for / the paint to dry!"), then the intense feeling of "notes flowing through my fingers / to my body, / to my soul," on the way to a life in music: "Grown-up me lived this dream! Year after year after year!" Goodman follows along in equally lyrical measures, giving the brown-skinned narrator the same rhapsodic smile as she goes from a vision of playing hymns on a rickety-looking church piano at "age three, maybe four" to accompanying herself on a huge concert grand as an adult star. In a closing note, with photos, she offers further nods to people who helped her as she fills in the details of her stellar career. Family members and other figures in the pictures are African American. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A moving testimonial to the effects of instilling a love of live music in childhood. (timeline) (Picture-book biography. 6-8)

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 1, 2023
This engaging picture-book memoir by multiple-Grammy-winner Flack, known for such 1970s megahits as "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Killing Me Softly with His Song," opens with young Roberta's early childhood. She describes it as filled with musical inspirations (her parents played harmonica and organ; she listened to classic songs on the radio) and dominated by her love of the piano and the dream of owning one. Flack's story finds its focus when her daddy brings home a piano from a junkyard ("old, beat-up, weather-worn, faded...and it stank!"), cleans it up, tunes it, and paints it green. Flack's delight in making music is at the center of the story, as she describes the joy she takes at playing her piano and her hours and hours of practice, with her success as an adult musician shown only briefly as the "bigger dream" that her dedication made possible. That delight in making music is evident throughout in Goodman's gouache illustrations, which show Flack's face shining ecstatically when she plays; Goodman fills those pages with joyful green swirls, as if the essence of that beloved green piano is escaping into the air. An author's note from Flack adds more details and a list of career highlights completes the book.

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)