by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 08, 2009   Last Updated: December 08, 2009

Tricia Tusa has illustrated dozens of children's books - but for "Miranda," she became an author-illustrator. It tells the story of a little girl who loves to play the piano. She makes everyone proud of her - her teachers at school, her relatives, and even her piano instructor. But in this story, Miranda must make face their disapproval when she starts playing a new kind of boogie-woogie music.

Tusa dedicates this book to her sister, "whose playing boogie-woogie made growing up a lot more fun" - and there's fun in her pictures. There's an old man playing boogie-woogie on the corner, with a harmonica tilting in his mouth. Miranda dances to the music on one foot, as the birds on the sidewalk seem to dance too. And when Miranda plays the same music on her piano, she hits the low keys with one foot while she uses her hand to toss musical notes to the ceiling. Soon she's dancing across the keyboard - literally - and even doing a handstand on the keys!

"Miranda's playing boogie-woogie makes everyone else very, very unhappy," Tusa writes, and there's a hidden message in the color scheme. Miranda's dress is bright red, but nearly everything else is drawn in black and white. Even the people around her are black and white - except the boogie-woogie man on the corner, whose shirt and socks are bright red. And when she closes the door on the piano room altogether - refusing to play - there's no color at all. There's just the black silhouette of an unused piano.

It's sad, because playing that boogie-woogie music had made Mirana "very, very happy." Some books have good illustrators who aren't able to write a good story to accompany them, but when she writes about the girl and her music, Tusa seems to be speaking from the heart. Now the house is filled with whispers, with no smiles or even an appetite. The children are listless at school, and no one is singing. But Tusa knows a little bit about the need for artistic outlets. "The person who is suffering most," she writes, "is Miranda."

Eventually Miranda's parents relent, and the dust is vacuumed off the piano. (There's a funny drawing showing only a woman with a vacuum cleaner - and an enormous cloud of dust!) "And once again, there is music!" Tusa writes, in celebration. Miranda's got a smile on her face, and plays what everyone wants to hear.

"But, for herself, Miranda plays what now makes her happiest - boogie-woogie!"

And there's a final drawing of Miranda, doing a handstand on the keys.

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