BWW Reviews: Hamlisch's MARVIN MAKES MUSIC Encourages Big Dreams

MARVIN MAKES MUSIC is the posthumous picture-book offering of musical giant Marvin Hamlisch, a stylish, gorgeously illustrated story of Hamlisch's own childhood at the piano. Marvin's a little boy who loves music and who loves the piano. And Marvin's parents love him, so he has a piano and a piano teacher.

But Marvin loves writing his own music, not playing music by dead people, and he has, well, stage fright. Performing for relatives and his parents' friends scares him to pieces. But parents know what's best, of course, and so they've lined up their nervous son who doesn't want to play classical music with an audition at a music school. And not just any, but the biggest, fanciest one around.

That news makes him nervous, and nervous makes him scared, and soon, everything's going wrong before his big audition. Will he make it through the audition - will he even make it into the audition? And what will happen next?

Grownups know how it ends, because "Marvin" is composer and performer Marvin Hamlisch, who entered Juilliard at the age of six. But they may not have known the details of what happened in trying to get in. And young children have to learn about confronting fears, and how you sometimes have to do things that you don't really like doing in order to get to do what you really do want to do and to reach that last-page happy ending.

It's a short story, simply and charmingly told, the way a parent would tell a young child a story about their own childhood, and its point is made clearly but without preaching - sometimes you have to do those less pleasant things to get to your big dream, and sometimes you might feel a little embarrassed along the way, but it's okay. Marvin's dad shows him how to work on having a positive attitude about the upcoming challenges, in a way that will help young readers and the read-to learn how to do that very thing themselves.

The illustrations, by Jim Madsen, are delicious - they're nostalgic, broadly-drawn portraits of six-year-old Marvin, his puppy, his family, the maybe-scary professors at the music school, and a child's-dream New York, in the 1940's - 1950's style of children's art that baby boomers remember fondly. The fact that the story is period, and that the pictures are of a New York, and of clothing, cars, home décor, and the like, of Hamlisch's childhood, makes that artistic style not only appropriate but perfect. Parents and grandparents will appreciate the illustrations as much as they do the story, while the glimpse into the past ("That's a standing radio, dear") will intrigue young children looking at the artwork.

Recently released in hard-cover with an accompanying CD of a song by Hamlisch and Rupert Holmes, it's now being released as an e-book as well, which should only serve to spread the joy this book shares. "Joy" is the right word, indeed - Hamlisch's joy in life and in music, vividly illustrated by Madsen, comes through each page. And while the message for children comes through clearly, there's also a message for parents in it that many would do well to take to heart: Marvin Hamlisch didn't like to practice, either, and he turned out okay.

A perfect book for young children interested in music and performing arts, or to inspire one to become interested in them, this bedtime story won't necessarily give them dreams, but it may help them to dream big. Hardcover available at major bookstores and children's bookstores; the e-book should become available at all major online retailers.

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