The Daddy Longlegs Blues

by Mike Ornstein, Lisa Kopelke (Illustrator)

Overview

Daddy Longlegs will have kids singing along with his bluesy song as they read this hip picture book! He’s one cool cat who scats, an eight-legged drummer keeping the beat. He moves and grooves and gets funky across the floor. And one thing’s for sure: no one’s better at getting mellow on a saxophone, and bringing rhythm and soul into every child’s home.  Mike Ornstein’s catchy rhyming text is irresistibly musical, and Lisa Kopelke’s witty art features plenty of fun details and an urban, bohemian flair; her sunglasses-wearing title character seems to come straight out of the Beat generation. A glossary of blues terms, a list of instruments played by the characters, and a page of facts about daddy longlegs and blues music provides extra entertaining info.

 

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781454906148
Publisher:	Sterling Children's Books
Publication date:	11/20/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	8 MB
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Mike Ornstein is afraid of spiders and has no musical talent whatsoever. This is his first picture book.

Lisa Kopelke is the author and illustrator of several children’s books, including The Younger Brother’s Survival Guide, Tissue Please!, and Excuse Me! (all Simon & Schuster). Find out more about her on her Web site, www.lisakopelke.com.

Editorial Reviews

The hero of this light, rhythmic science/music primer, an itinerant eight-legged musician (who is not a spider, the back matter explains, but rather a harvestman, from the order Opiliones), really does have a right to sing the blues: “His daddy was a wanderer/ and his momma was, too./ He hatched from an egg/ his momma laid in a crack/ just before she got squashed/ in the back of a shack.” First-time author Ornstein's rhymesestablish a hip vibe, with just enough winks to the audience to add humor without undercutting the message (“Come dance as The Daddy gives his drums a beat./ He has eight long legs but he ain't got feet”). Unfortunately, Kopelke's acrylic and pencil images are far from funky, which the book's glossary defines as “having the soulful feeling of early blues.” Her Daddy Longlegs looks like a mud ball with a limited expressive range, while her settings feel empty and under-imagined. It's the visual equivalent of clapping on one and three. Ages 4–7. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 2–4—A rhyming text and sweeping, humorous acrylic and colored-pencil illustrations introduce Daddy Longlegs, a rambler and roamer who makes his way across the pages of this book, singing the Daddy Longlegs Blues. "He'll scat across your ceiling…/and get funky on your floor./Shake his booty down your hallway/and then shimmy out the door." For the most part, the rhyming cadence works well, but in a few instances it switches, making the rhythm a little awkward to read aloud. A concluding section provides brief information on the history of the blues and its influence on jazz, rock, soul, R&B, and hip-hop. A glossary of blues terms as well as a list of the musical instruments played by Daddy Longlegs are also provided (fiddle, bass guitar, guitar, saxophone, drum percussion instrument, and the piano). This is a fun, visual interpretation of a musical style that can be incorporated into music units.—Mary N. Oluonye, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH

School Library Journal

"Bounce with The Daddy as he plays his fiddle. He's eight long legs with a dot in the middle." The poem, a mix of fact (both zoological and musical) and fancy, depicts a harvestman, or daddy longlegs, as a funky creature playing the blues, with a number of insects keeping time and accompanying him with the beat. A variety of settings, from a cafe for insects to a house from a human perspective, provides the backdrop to the poem. Kopelke's illustrations of acrylic and colored pencil are alive with all kinds of creepy-crawlies-most decked out in groovy shades-who get down with the Daddy on multiple instruments and convene for a climactic concert onstage. For all their liveliness, however, the illustrations suffer from their depiction of the title character as a corpulent, short-legged fellow, which hardly matches the text's description or children's firsthand observations of the creature. A glossary of blues terms, definitions of the instruments played and a short description of the harvestman and the history of the blues is appended. The jazzy poem will be fun for sharing. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews