What Music!: Saturday Storytime with Laurie Lawlor

The Book Stall is delighted to host celebrated children’s author Laurie Lawlor on Saturday, December 9 at 10:30 am for a story time featuring her new book, What Music!: The Fifty-Year Friendship Between Beethoven and Nannette Streicher, Who Built His Pianos. Meet best friends acclaimed composer Ludwig van Beethoven and bold female entrepreneur Nannette Streicher in this lively and lyrical nonfiction picture book. Ms. Lawlor masterfully uses forgotten historical letters, a glossary, and rich back matter on both friends’ lives to introduce readers to the man behind the music. Ms. Lawlor will be happy to sign her book following the story time! This book is great for kids ages 6 to 9.

More About the Book: In 1787, aspiring composer Ludwig van Beethoven arrives at young Nannette Stein’s home. What follows is a decades-long friendship that persists through life’s low and high notes. Acclaimed nonfiction writer Laurie Lawlor deftly depicts how these two fascinating friends, a composer with hearing loss and a woman who became an innovative piano maker in a time that discouraged female entrepreneurship, fought the odds, and worked together in perfect harmony. Complete with Becca Stadtlander’s intricate mixed-media artwork, What Music! deftly dives into musical history in an intimate yet expansive picture book biography that hits just the right note.

Booklist, in a starred review, says, “Language as strong and melodic as her subjects’ music…. What a friendship!”

More About the Author: Laurie Lawlor is a prolific and celebrated author of children’s books. Her picture book biography Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World was named a Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, a National Science Teaching Association Outstanding Science Trade Book, and received the John Burroughs Riverby Award. Her Super Women: Six Scientists Who Changed the World was named an NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book. She lives and teaches in the Chicago metropolitan area.