Silent music

The story of a young boy growing up in war torn Baghdad and his struggle to see past the world around him through his love of his native language and calligraphy. A poignant ending to a revealing book, "It's funny how easily my pen glides the long sweeping hooks of the word HARB--war...how

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stubbornly it resists me when I make the difficult waves and slanted staff of SALAM--peace..."

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A story about a boy who takes pride in his culture through the fancy writing of calligraphy. It is a calming and relaxing activity that he finds fullfillment in by the way the letters form. He speaks about the war activity in Baghdad and writes about the deaths and fires that have encompassed his

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home land. This is a very powerful piece, maybe a little hard for children to understand right away but worth the effort since it is so important to understand other cultures.

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A boy in Baghdad uses his love of calligraphy to help him see through war to the future. The book has gorgeous examples of written Arabic and Islamic art, and portrays an modern Baghdad family.

This is a simple storyline of a boy's love of calligraphy blended with the culture of Iraq. Ali shares his daily life of soccer, music and dancing and his hours spent practicing his calligraphy. He leaves messages for his father in the bathroom, and he invents new ways of making letters. When bombs

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and missiles fell on his city, Ali uses practices his calligraphy to stay calm and to fill his mind with peace.

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This book would make a great multicultural addition to any library. Ali lives in Baghdad, and loves to practice calligraphy. Some people even compare him to Yakut, an ancient calligrapher whose writing is admired and treasured. Powerful symbolism exists between Ali's practice of writing words such

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as "war" and "peace" and the conflicts in Iraq. Silent Music opens a space for important discussions on peace, different cultures, and the world we live in.

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The story of a modern boy growing up in Baghdad. Even though a war is going on all around him, he is a normal boy who loves calligraphy. And this writing has helped him get through many scary situations. This type of writing requires a lot of patience and practice which he has. This is told in the

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first person and any child can relate to him.

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Silent Music uses illustrations inspired from photos taken by American soldiers. The layout of this book is what makes this book so wonderful. The caligraphy is all over the pages in large print and in small. The book is hopeful but a little sad, perhaps how the children of war torn cities are. I

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like the way the words form in my mouth while reading this book aloud.

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What a beautifully written and illustrated book! The illustrations in this book are unique, both to the book itself and even then from page to page. I think that the theme of a collage-like background adds to the feeling of so much going on, both “normal kid” stuff like soccer, and scary adult

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stuff like war and bombing. I especially like the one page on which the soccer players don’t have faces; this must be the feeling of individuals like Ali who have their own stories, but who are made to feel like part of the masses. Yet, in the end, it is just Ali and his calligraphy. The message, a yearning for peace, is quite powerful from a child’s point of view.

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Story about a boy living in Baghdad who uses his love of Arabic calligraphy to deal with the bombings in 2003.
The story of Yakut, a famous 13th century calligrapher, is part of the book. I like the title; it aptly describes the flow of letters.

A beautiful but sad picture book about art in the middle of war.

Summary:
This book is about Ali, a boy growing up in Baghdad who loves soccer, and music, but most of all calligraphy. During the war with the bombings Ali escapes it by listening to the music in his head as he writes caligraphy and thinks of an ancient calligrapher named Yakut who also escaped war

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a long time ago by writing calligraphy.

Personal Reaction:
I was a bit dissapointed in the story of this book. It did not compare to the illustrations. They were really busy, and overpowered the simple story. It was nice however to read the background of the author and how he did the illustrations in the author's note.

Classroom Extensions:
1. The students could practice making calligraphy as an art assignment.
2. Discuss how children in other countries are alike, and differnt from us in the U.S.

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This story is about a young boy, Ali, who seems like most other young boys. He enjoys soccer, and loud music, but he also enjoys the art form of calligraphy. The second thing that makes him different to the reader is that he lives in war-torn Baghdad. The author allows the reader to see Ali’s

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love for calligraphy, his hours of practice and his determination to form hard-to-make letters and words. At the same time, Rumford draws parallels between the experiences of Ali in present-day Baghdad to the life of Yakut, a master calligrapher who lived in Baghdad over 800 years ago. Both used the art of calligraphy to sooth the fear and pain of war and bring beauty to a world of suffering and ugliness. The most profound statement of this book occurs when Ali observes that the calligraphy sign for war flows so easily on to the paper, while the letters for peace stubbornly resist the tip of his pen. This book tells the story of a boy to young children, but gives profound insight into war and peace to the adult reader.
Library Implications: The story of Ali lends itself to many learning scenarios. The librarian could partner with the art department in a school or community center to let children experiment with pen and ink calligraphy lettering; students could also make up their own lettering system. This experience with pen and ink is becoming a lost art that not many students have the opportunity to explore. The story of Yakut could also be explored, focusing on various artists from the region who made this art form popular. Older students could focus Baghdad and its tumultuous history of unrest.

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This is a surprisingly non-political take on the story of a young boy who escapes the wart in Baghdad through calligraphy and idolizes another, ancient calligrapher who did something similar centuries before. Sympathetic but realistic, with beautiful Arabic calligraphy throughout.

I liked how this book didn't focus on politics but rather on using art for understanding. The artwork corresponds great to the storyline and takes the reader along the journey. Classroom use: Definite use when talking about other cultures. Art could also be the focus of a lesson because it is the

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main focus of the book.

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This was an ok book. There was not much in the way of plot, but rather, it was a narrative of a boy emulating a hero of his by writing calligraphy while under attack. The portrayal of a child at war was very moving, though, and the illustrations were really exceptional, setting this book apart, and

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providing a good visual impression of a different culture.

This title could be tied in to talking about the wars in Iraq, about Islam, Arabic, calligraphy, for children learning to write, and even just for learning some new vocabulary, as the writing is very simple. Libraries might highlight this title for bilingual lists or displays (because some Arabic words are shown), for programming or displays on Arabic cultures, Islam, Iraq, war, or for children's programming having to do with learning to write.

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I liked this book. The illustrations were gorgeous and the story is moving. The story ends with the boy saying how easy it is to write the word "war" and how difficult the word "peace" is...he will have to practice. It is also very unpolitical in its portrayal of the U.S.-Iraq war. There is no

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blame or propaganda in this book. I think it would be useful in curriculum about children around the world, the Iraq war, or penmanship/calligraphy units.

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First person narrative of what life is like for him in Iraq.
Powerful story as how children deal with war and how peace can become an illusion or difficult to grasp.

Used to teach the perspective of children in war zones.

Ali lives in Baghdad, the place where he plays soccer with his friends, but also a place of danger. Inspired by and relating to an ancient calligrapher, who also lived during wartimes, Ali uses his love for calligraphy as an outlet for his fear and worry. Though peace might be one of the harder

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words to write, Ali will continue practicing and hoping someday if will become easier.

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This story takes place in Baghdad. It is the story of a young boy named Alli who grows up in a dangerous place during warfare, but loves all of the things that children like to do. Ali especially loves calligraphy and how the movements of his pen make silent music in his head. He is inspired by

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Yakut, a master calligrapher from over 800 years ago during a time of warfare. The illustrations are unique and contain patterns with beautiful colors and unique designs. The designs symbolize the calligraphy going through Ali's head, helping him get through the difficult time of war. There is great meaning when Ali talks about how his pen writes "war" so easily, but struggles with writing "peace," having to practice a great deal to write it. This can be applied to real life. War is easy to begin, but peace is difficult to achieve and we must work hard for it. This story delivers a powerful message that is important for all children as well as adults to hear and remember.

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Ali, a young boy in Baghdad, loves to play soccer with this friends, he loves to listen to "parent-rattling music" and he loves to dance. But Ali finds the most peace and solace when he writes calligraphy. The ink flowing from him pen across the paper sounds like "silent music" in his head. Like

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the famous calligrapher, Yakut, who lived in Baghdad eight hundred years earlier, Ali uses his calligraphy to fight the sound of bombs that fill Baghdad's air. As he fills his page with beautiful strokes, his mind fills with peace.

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This book is about a boy named Ali who writes calligraphy to cope with the 2003 bombing of Baghdad. The story is a little slow and the color scheme of the pages didn't work for me. I was actually a little disappointed with this book.

Summary: There once was a child in Baghdad who was like any normal child. He loved to dance, and play, but most of all he loved to write. He believed that calligraphy had the power to create peace in his heart when all around him there was chaos. He created happiness in his home with the writings

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he made for his father. He was inspired by the story of a man who like him used calligraphy as an escape in order to see beauty in a broken world.

Genre: I would say that this story is realistic fiction as well as somewhat informational. It is realistic fiction due to the fact that it talks about a boy who grows up during the US and Iraq. It also talks about he copes with this stress in his life. The story is also informational because it teaches about calligraphy and how it goes right to left, also it tells a story of a man who truly lived and how he had the best calligraphy known to the Iraqi people.

Setting: I would say that the setting is truly remarkable in this story. For me I did not really think about the setting until we got to the story of the man who hid away in a tower drawing his beautiful calligraphy. It was then that it hit, this is taking place somewhere else where their stories are not of Camalot or Rapunzel, but of men who create beautiful writings, and people who value beauty in chaos. I think that it is even better that this boys life is similar to the man's life because they both used calligraphy to escape and they both did this in Iraq just in different times.

Media: pencil and charcoal enhanced compute

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"Silent Music" is a book about a young boy who lives in Baghdad. He uses his love of calligraphy to ignore the violence of war that surrounds him.

"Silent Music" is full of beautiful illustrations of calligraphy. I really liked this book. It even has a few foreign words in it that the people of

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Baghdad use. It was a great book!

This would be a great book to use during a multicultural unit. I would have my class practice writing their own calligraphy. In English of course. I think it would be fun to see my students write their own calligraphy.

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Lovely account of the beauty of Arabic writing and its ability to bring stillness during times of great strife. Narrator talks about the complexity and difficulty of writing some words like "Peace", verses other words like "War" as an analogy for how difficult peace is in his city and circumstances.