Books like Guitar Genius: How Les Paul Engineered the Solid-Body Electric Guitar and Rocked the World
By Kim Tomsic
For the kid who's already taken apart three remote controls just to see how they work, this is proof that tinkering can lead somewhere extraordinary. Energetic, inventive, and full of clattering, homemade ingenuity
A glamorous Hollywood movie star secretly spends her nights inventing — and during World War Two, she develops a groundbreaking communications system the military doesn't take seriously, at first, because of who she is.
A musical girl from small-town North Carolina, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, grows into the singer Nina Simone — her sweet voice rising into a thunderous roar of protest during the Civil Rights Movement.
A young left-handed girl picks up her brother's guitar, flips it upside down to play it her own way, and by age eleven has written "Freight Train," a song the world would come to know.
A quiet, piano-loving boy — the son of a man once enslaved — grows up to compose music so joyful and rhythmic it earns him a new name: the King of Ragtime.
A biography of jazz pioneer Duke Ellington, tracing his rise from playing pool halls and cabarets as a teenager to leading his orchestra through a groundbreaking Carnegie Hall performance of Black, Brown, and Beige.
A Black boy growing up in segregated 1940s North Carolina loves to draw everything around him, but becomes a football star instead — until his dream of making art finds its way to him.
Three young rebels find each other while playing outside, and when a local lagoon dries up and traps a bird friend, they call on their ancestors to help.
A secret night-time inventor builds gadgets from odds and ends, but hides them under her bed until her great-great-aunt Rose visits and helps her see her crashed flying machine as a success, not a failure.
A long-legged girl who dreams of ballet worries her too-big feet and outspoken mouth will hold her back, so she takes bold, attention-grabbing risks when a famous director visits her class.
A lonely mole hears a violin on the radio and decides he must learn to play one himself, practicing alone underground for years without knowing who might be listening above.
A boy in Punjab, born with weak legs that kept him from playing cricket or walking to school, grows stronger year by year on his family's farm and eventually runs marathons at over one hundred years old.
A boy who longs to be a trumpeter can only play an imaginary horn, until a musician from the neighborhood night club notices his ambition and takes him seriously.
