Jesse James: I Will Never Surrender Book

I actually want to give this 4 stars for the information in the text, but 3 for the illustrations. I appreciate the concept of the puppet play, but the strings were just annoying. What I really liked about this book was what I learned about Mozart that I'd never known before. For example, I didn't know the details of the relationship between Mozart and his father. I thought they were always on good terms, but apparently not. In fact, I also thought that Mozart and his sister Nannerl were always on good terms, but not so. I also didn't know that he taught music. He seems to have been quite the character. I thought the movie "Amadeus" was exaggerating his eccentricity! I found it interesting that, once he was living on his own in Vienna, he had to compose a new concerto for every performance he gave, even at parties, because people didn't like to hear the same thing twice. No wonder he wrote so much! I also didn't know that he and Constanze had 6 children, only 2 of whom lived. It's too bad that he died so young--think of all the more music he'd have left us had he lived longer. Recommended.