What is it about the violin that is so alluring and mysterious when you compare it to other instruments?
I had started taking piano lessons when I was child, and began the violin later. In my memoir, Eleven Stories High: Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948—1968, I describe the difference between the two: the violin was “an instrument,” the piano “seemed more like a piece of furniture.” With a violin “you had to create the notes. At the piano you simply pushed down the keys. I loved the violin, the way the wood curved and the grain rippled in the light, the S holes that let me peer into the secret depths.”
Have you written any other violin/music related books?
That’s an interesting question. As I look over the books I’ve written I see that music plays a part more often than I’d realized.
Two Christmas Mice is a picture book about two lonely mice who discover they are neighbors on Christmas Eve when Annamouse plays “Silent Night” on her violin, and Willamouse, hears her playing through the wall (“Only a mouse could play that well”). Both mice claim “Mouzart” as their favorite composer, and Santamouse brings Annamouse a silver violin charm. Stephanie Roth illustrated this story and her violin-playing mouse is adorable.
In my memoir, Eleven Stories High: Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948—1968, there’s a whole chapter called “Music,” and music is a theme in a number of my short stories in both my collections. “Lifelines” in Daffodils, Or, the Death of Love is about a woman who takes up the violin as an adult. “Ears” in What We Save for Last, is about a woman who is a page-turner, and travels with her violinist lover, turning pages for his accompanist when they are on stage. “Memorial Day,” in the same collection, is about a divorced couple who are together when their daughter plays her trumpet with her school band.
In my picture book The Boy Who Was Generous With Salt the characters sing sea shanties (the music for “Cape Cod Girls” is in the back of the book). The Title of my YA novel If Ever I Return Again comes from the refrain of a sea shanty that is sung during the story. In "Hurricane!" the Daddy in the story plays his harmonica to comfort the little girl during the storm.
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