This Jazz Man.(Book review)(Children's review)

* This Jazz Man, by Karen Ehrhardt. Harcourt, Inc. (www. harcourtbooks.com/childrensbooks; 1 (800) 543-1918), 2006. $16.

Upon receiving this book, This Jazz Man, I was thrilled to begin reading it! The cover design conveyed a sort of retro-funk-look, and of course being about music, it beckoned for me to open it. Karen Ehrhardt has cleverly taken the old and familiar rhyme of "This Old Man" and carefully reworded it to be more contemporary and set in a jazz frame-work. For example, the first verse of This Jazz Man goes something like this: "This jazz man, he plays one, He plays rhythm with his thumb, with a snap! snap! snazzy-snap! Give the man a hand, This jazz man scats with the band." Accompanying each rhyme is a guest musician. For the first rhyme, the musician is snapping his fingers, and the author has a written a scat to accompany the finger snapping musician. The scat goes something like this: "Beee-diddly-doo-ah! ... Dooo-aaaaah!" All 10 verses of This Jazz Man are presented in this same manner.

The illustrations throughout the book are well done. The clothing illustration of each performer is awesome. Every musician wears some sort of jacket and pants combination, and always with a tie. The illustrator makes a distinction between each musician with respect to their facial features and in their clothing. A variety of hip colors are featured in plaid, stripe or even dot combinations. There is, however, one musician who does not wear the jacket--the pianist--he wears a vest.

Each ...