  | Maurice Author: Bagley, Jessixa | |
| Price: $22.58 | ||
Summary:
Maurice loved to share his music with everyone, and the crowds loved him, but times changed, his audience drifted away, and without anyone to share with Maurice became sad and lonely--until one day, his heart remembered and he found a new audience.
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (03/01/23)
School Library Journal (04/01/23)
Booklist (04/01/23)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 04/01/2023 In this sensitive tale about time and change, a musician who delights in busking to feed a flock of songbirds in his apartment loses his desire to play when he stops drawing audiences on the streets. Setting the birds free, he goes through a sad, silent, solitary period—but then comes spring, “and with it came memories Maurice’s head had forgotten. But the heart remembers,” Bagley writes. “Hearts remember.” Sitting on a park bench, he begins to play, and when songbirds come down from the trees to join in, drawing a rapt crowd of passersby, his joy in art is rekindled. “Because a song, like love, is always better when it’s shared.” That Maurice’s instrument is an accordion, that he himself and all who stop to listen are upright dogs in human dress, and that the settings, depicted with elegance and affection, are Parisian add both subtle humor and rich atmosphere to this natural storytime companion for Louis Thomas’ The Music of Life (2020) and like Gallic-themed oeuvres. - Copyright 2023 Booklist.
School Library Journal - 04/01/2023 PreS-Gr 2—Maurice is a hound in a blue hat and blue slacks and familiar accordion player on the charming street corners of Paris. He was once a famous musician, but now he has a simpler life and enjoys every interaction with his neighbors, the people he passes on the streets, those sipping coffee in the small cafes he passes. His life is full and exactly as he likes it. But the city gets chaotic and drowns out his music; soon Maurice is not making enough to buy the seed for his friends at home, and he opens his windows to let them fly free. What follows is a melancholy winter, and just as readers feel as if they are in for a Little Match Girl ending, spring returns, and so do Maurice's friends and revenue stream. It's a happy ending that may ring false to children, suggesting that Maurice can reverse urban growth or even aging itself. And yet the scenes are so pretty, and the message so earnest. VERDICT So much of this charms, with the early clarity about simple pleasures. It loses its way, but remains nice to look at.—Kimberly Olson Fakih - Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
