Maurice

March 1, 2023
Music is sweetest when filled with love. Maurice, "once a famous musician," is an anthropomorphic floppy-eared brown dog who regales crowds all over Paris with beautiful accordion songs. His listeners--pooches of various breeds charmingly dressed in human garb--are delighted with tunes that fill quiet times and shut out the noisy city's clamor. They reward him with coins, and Maurice repays them by sharing his heart. He's kind and generous in other ways, too. He's happiest among his numerous beloved pet birds, whose merry songs and chatter inspire him, for "a song, like love, is always better when it's shared." Sadly, Maurice's audiences eventually disappear. Without money to feed his birds, he makes the heart-rending decision to free them. With them goes his music. With spring's arrival, Maurice's heart recalls the old songs. As his music returns, so do his birds, joined by new ones. The combined sounds bring an enchanted new crowd to listen to the melodies, filled again with love--as is Maurice's apartment, shared with cherished birds once more. This is a sweet, quiet, contemplative story about the joys of sharing love, though perhaps one that may resonate more with adults, as will the delicately lovely Parisian scenes, brimming with Gallic character and iconic, beloved landmarks. Adults who've been there will swoon with longing to return. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A gentle reminder that love is a song that must be sung and shared always--and never goes out of tune. (Picture book. 4-7)

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Starred review from March 20, 2023
The eponymous protagonist of this soulful picture book from Bagley (Courage Hats) is an orange canine accordionist who once played big concert halls. “But times and things changed. They always do,” and now he busks on the streets of an entirely dog-populated Paris. C’est la vie: as elegant watercolor and digitally collaged vignettes make clear, Maurice “still had songs to play.” Against the city’s backgrounds, he serenades passersby (“each note soaring to the sky”), displays kindness and congeniality, and takes inspiration from the bevy of birds who share his humble apartment. But times keep changing; Maurice starts feeling “shushed by the city’s chaotic rhythms,” and begins to see far fewer coins in his cup. Low on birdseed funds and determined to keep his beloved birds from starving, he throws open his window and, in a breathtaking double gatefold image, releases them into the wild, resigning himself to a heart that feels “like an empty birdcage.” Bagley has confidence that her readers can handle a little melancholy, and so the quietly happy ending arrives at a measured pace, slowly assuring Maurice, and readers, that love and the pursuit of beauty endure across time and seasons. Ages 5–8. Agent: Alexandra Penfold, Upstart Crow Literary.

April 1, 2023
Grades 1-3 In this sensitive tale about time and change, a musician who delights in busking to feed a flock of songbirds in his apartment loses his desire to play when he stops drawing audiences on the streets. Setting the birds free, he goes through a sad, silent, solitary period--but then comes spring, "and with it came memories Maurice's head had forgotten. But the heart remembers," Bagley writes. "Hearts remember." Sitting on a park bench, he begins to play, and when songbirds come down from the trees to join in, drawing a rapt crowd of passersby, his joy in art is rekindled. "Because a song, like love, is always better when it's shared." That Maurice's instrument is an accordion, that he himself and all who stop to listen are upright dogs in human dress, and that the settings, depicted with elegance and affection, are Parisian add both subtle humor and rich atmosphere to this natural storytime companion for Louis Thomas' The Music of Life (2020) and like Gallic-themed oeuvres.

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April 1, 2023

PreS-Gr 2-Maurice is a hound in a blue hat and blue slacks and familiar accordion player on the charming street corners of Paris. He was once a famous musician, but now he has a simpler life and enjoys every interaction with his neighbors, the people he passes on the streets, those sipping coffee in the small cafes he passes. His life is full and exactly as he likes it. But the city gets chaotic and drowns out his music; soon Maurice is not making enough to buy the seed for his friends at home, and he opens his windows to let them fly free. What follows is a melancholy winter, and just as readers feel as if they are in for a Little Match Girl ending, spring returns, and so do Maurice's friends and revenue stream. It's a happy ending that may ring false to children, suggesting that Maurice can reverse urban growth or even aging itself. And yet the scenes are so pretty, and the message so earnest. VERDICT So much of this charms, with the early clarity about simple pleasures. It loses its way, but remains nice to look at.-Kimberly Olson Fakih

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