About this item
[Children's Fiction (Ages 8-12) ]In this new novel from award-winning author Rita Williams-Garcia, when aspiring bluesman Clayton Byrd loses his beloved grandfather, he must figure out what to do with all his anger and sadness -- and finally learns to play a blues song all his own.Clayton feels most alive when he's playing music with his grandfather, Cool Papa Byrd, and the band of Bluesmen -- he can't wait to join them, just as soon as he has a blues song of his own. But then the unthinkable happens. Cool Papa Byrd dies, and Clayton's mother forbids Clayton from playing the blues. And Clayton knows that's no way to live.Armed with his grandfather's brown porkpie hat and his ''blues harp,'' he runs away from home, in search of the Bluesmen, hoping he can join them on the road.
About the Author
Rita Williams-Garcia (born 1957) is an American writer of young-adult novels. She won the 2011 Newbery Honor Award, Coretta Scott King Award, and Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for her book, One Crazy Summer. She won the PEN/Norma Klein Award. Her book, P.S. Be Eleven, won the Coretta Scott King Award in 2014. In 2016 her book, Gone Crazy in Alabama won the Coretta Scott King Award.Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Jeffrey Beall (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) ], via Wikimedia Commons.
