Before John was a Jazz Giant by Carole Boston Weatherford Illustrated by Sean Qualls

I really enjoyed this book. As I read it it was almost as though I could hear the music in all of the things that were talked about. On the last page he said that before he was a jazz giant he was all ears. I thought that that was a great ending to the book because it gave me the idea that it is important to not only be able to do something but to take the time and listen and watch and take things in. The illustrations were very interesting as well. They were detailed but at the same time a little obscure in that some pictures were overlapping others and not in any particular order. I enjoyed that because it took a little while for me to look at the picture and see what was happening. I also liked that the pictures were showing the different aspects of the texts. It caused me to really think about what the words were saying and seeing them in drawing helped with the picturing of how they could make music.