Muriel Harris Weinstein

If you want to read a cute story the closes the musical and cultural gap between Louis Armstrong and a little girl, this is the one. It was so playful and fun to read as I was able to sing-along with the words. This would be fun to include a music classroom, but also appropriate for a history class, personal home library, or general reading. I loved the little biography about Louis Armstrong at the end as well, though the focus of the story was on him teaching the little girl how to scat.

The childhood of Louis Armstrong was as fascinating as the great musician himself-and this chapter book biography tells it like never before. Play, Louis, Play! is written from the point of view of Louis' closest companion throughout his youth-his horn! In a jazz-inflected, exuberant voice, this unusual narrator tells it all, starting with the small New Orleans hock shop where little Louis bought his first trumpet for five hard-earned dollars.

One of my favorite recent library loans. This book is wonderful all the way through. The snap and pop of the words and the illustrations makes this a great read.

After finishing the book my daughter and I surfed YouTube for videos of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sara Vaughn. We tried our own hand at scatting all weekend long.

We will be looking to add a copy of this to our personal library.