When Bob Met Woody
Gary Golio
Little, Brown, $18, 40 pages, ages 8-12
Gary Golio's exceptional picture book about Bob Dylan's early years begs for an accompanying recording. Together they would introduce young readers to one of America's great music legends. However, even without the music, Golio's portrait of Dylan as a boy in a small Minnesota mining town gives youngsters plenty to ponder. Golio shows how Dylan's love of music fortified him to overcome opposition at home and teasing at school.
Born Bob Zimmerman in 1941, he first performed at age 4 for his grandmother. By age 10, he was teaching himself piano and guitar. Life in the mining town didn't interest him. He felt like an outsider. His inner life focused on writing poems and songs, listening to Muddy Waters and others on the radio and reading poems by Dylan Thomas. Sometimes he would stand under a streetlight and perform to the falling snow.
To please his parents, he started college, but spent most of his time in coffeehouses where folk music was the rage. Asked his name during an audition, he replied, "Bob – Bob Dylan," after his favorite poet. At first, people walked out on him. He practiced.
His life changed the day he heard Woody Guthrie's records. Guthrie was everything Dylan wanted to be, a singer who told stories about poor farmers and striking miners. When Dylan heard Guthrie was hospitalized in New York, he hitchhiked there. It was January 1961. At Woody's bedside, Dylan sang as if he were a Guthrie jukebox. The ailing singer's eyes sparkled. His support galvanized Dylan's determination to sing about peace and justice.
Artist Marc Burckhardt captures Golio's story with plain, bold scenes in acrylics and oils. Their muted tones match Dylan's pensive mood.
Golio concludes with comments on Dylan's career and his inspiration for the book as well as a multimedia bibliography. As for that accompanying recording, check out www.bobdylan.com.
National Geographic KIDS Almanac 2012
$14, 352 pages/softcover, ages 8-12
There may be no better antidote to hot afternoons and long car trips than the National Geographic KIDS Almanac. It's the perfect gee-whiz book. Splendid photographs, maps and graphics create a browser's paradise full of history, technology, animals, sports, and science. Youngsters may pester their adults with "did you know … ?" questions. Other features include world news, tips for green living, games, trivia and a stump-your-parents quiz.
Each of the 10 chapters has a quick response code to scan with a smartphone for a direct link to mobile content. (See www. kids.nationalgeographic.com/almanac-2012.) Anyone with two kids may want to consider two copies.
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Judy Green can be reached at jgreen@sacbee.com.
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