Mysterious Thelonious

Mysterious Thelonious
by Chris Raschka

Inspired by the pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, this book mixes beautiful illustrations and text to create a portrait of Monk's music. The text in this book is written in large cursive writing, with words broken apart, and artistically displayed throughout the page. The non-traditional format made the poem somewhat difficult for me to read at first. I struggled to clearly grasp the order of the words, or even which syllables belonged with which words. However, as I slowly decoded the text, I realized that the poem tells the story of Thelonious Monk and his piano that played "no wrong notes." The format of the book perfectly matches the message of the text. As a musician, Thelonious experimented and improvised, not restricting himself to the notes on a page. He played the music of jazz, and as this poem articulates, "the music of freedom." As I read this poem and thought about ways to use this in the classroom, I thought about the idea that sometimes we restrict children's writing and creativity by focusing to much upon the "rules" of language. This poem, written non conventionally, discussing music that was non-conventional and creative, may open up windows for student's to explore with their own writing in new and unique ways.