Fans pick 99 books like I Am Drums

My last choice is about a musical girl who finds a very different kind of “instrument” to play!

Twelve-year-old Emmy just moved from Wisconsin to San Francisco for her dad’s big break as a pianist. Emmy wants to be a musician, too, but can’t find the right instrument to play (I can relate!).

Notes and classical terms are in her head, but not her fingers in this novel-in-verse. Instead of music as an elective, Emmy ends up in computer science and makes friends with a quiet girl named Abigail.

Emmy learns java script, and the reader learns along with her. In the end, Emmy finds a way to make her own kind of music through computer coding.

Are you a fan of the Beatles?

I am, and so is Apple Yengko, who wants desperately to learn to play the guitar but her mother says no. The family moved to Louisiana from the Philippines, after the death of Apple’s father, and everything about her mom embarrasses Apple.

Then, at the start of sixth grade, Apple realizes her one-time best friend cares only about social tiers and lists, including the so-called dog log. I love that Erin Entrada Kelly doesn’t shy away from the meanness of middle school!

What saves Apple are two new friends, including one with a beautiful voice, and at last Apple is comfortable showing who she is: a naturally talented guitar player.

When you have a stunning gospel-singing voice that nobody expects, what would you do?

This is a sweet story about ten-year-old Cadence whose mother left her when she was little; as a result, her father and the whole community babies her and calls her Mouse.

She embodies that label by never speaking up for what she wants (like a small birthday party) and by never singing with her full voice. When a new church music director invites students to audition, Cadence uploads a video of herself singing to the wrong website—and it goes viral.

When her friend asks her to pretend that she’s the “gospel girl,” Cadence finally decides to claim her talent and sing.

Sometimes, a beautiful voice can be expressed through the spoken word rather than in song.

This is a lovely story about Amina, a twelve-year-old Pakistan American with perfect pitch. Amina’s best friend urges her to sign up for a solo, but Amina prefers to accompany on the piano.

I love that Hena Khan builds Amina’s acceptance of who she is! Uncle’s melodious reading of the Quran changes Amina’s attitude, and she and her brother agree to participate in a statewide Quran recitation competition.

But when their Islamic Center is vandalized, the community rallies, and Amina finds the courage to recite the opening verses at the competition.

It isn’t perfect, but what she wins is a new self-confidence to sing.

If you want to know about drummers, Brennan’s book will guide you through the cultural, psychological, economic, technological, and entrepreneurial shifts which have collectively drawn the perimeter of the ballpark on which today’s drummers must perform. Now that we can all agree that drums are real instruments, that drummers are real musicians, and drumming is a real art form, this book provides an instrument-led social history that accords the subject an appropriate level of dignity and respect. Compulsory reading for the inquisitive citizen.

I’m a sucker for tongue-in-cheek humour, the sort of dry, straight-faced joke that is so skilfully woven into a narrative or a character’s personality that you’re almost not sure if it was meant to be funny.

Alex Barclay has that skill in truckloads, and uses it to tremendous effect in this book. It’s a ripping yarn about a young girl on the search for her dad – except, it’s about a lot more than that.

It embraces the absurd and the vividly real in equal measure, all told through the eyes of a beautifully-crafted main character.

I can’t think of another book like it – it is utterly, uniquely brilliant.

This is a history of classical music from 1900 onwards. I’ve always been interested in early twentieth-century western art. It seems to have veered off in radically new directions and expressed a different consciousness than what preceded it. Perhaps it was fomented by the dissolution of the relatively stable European order of the nineteenth century, shattered by the First World War. 

Alex Ross discusses the music of these times and the lives of the people who composed it. He is eminently capable, being musically trained, and finds the perfect balance between the technical and the personal. I was fascinated to learn that Shostakovich was a man who lived in constant fear of being purged. He always expected to be imprisoned. 

I also learned about Harry Partch, the American composer, who devised his own tuning systems and built an orchestra of strange instruments to play his music.

The Rest is Noise… show more.

I came across this book when I decided to focus my graduate study on the history of jazz and was reading everything I could find. It’s a short book, full of incredible vintage photographs, and it taught me so much about what swing is, how music and dance are joined at the hip. How it’s all rooted in the blues. And about the link between the “Saturday Night Function” of celebrating life with music and dance, followed a few hours later by the “Sunday Morning Function,” singing and celebrating God and community in church. The two are not all that far apart. Along with Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray was probably the first author to write about jazz with a real sense of lyricism and poetry. In this book, the writing itself carries the energy and exuberance of jazz.

In this book’s setting, firstborns rule, secondborns are government property, and thirdborns are non-existent. This story follows Roselle St. Sismode, a secondborn, and her journey into the next phase of her life as an adult as a soldier in the Fate of Swords military branch during a bloody rebellion. Being the daughter of a high-ranking firstborn mother and father, her privileges earn her the ire of some of the other soldiers in her command post, making her transition less than ideal, and her decision to spare an enemy on the battlefield puts an even larger target on her back. This puts her on a path that she’d never imagined she’d find herself on, working against her command and even her own family to fight for what she believes is right and bring justice to the secondborns of the world.

This story resonated with me on a personal level. Going against… show more.

It’s not common for books about WWI to contain detailed analysis of both the battlefields and the home front (although this dual coverage is a feature of my lost generation multi-biographies).

To compile a comprehensive history of Australia during the war that combines what happened at home with what occurred at the various fronts is indeed a daunting task, yet Joan Beaumont accomplished it with conspicuous success in this acclaimed and award-winning book.