Reviews for The Blues of Flats Brown

The average rating for The Blues of Flats Brown based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-04-13 00:00:00 Tiffany Moore I met Walter Dean Myers a couple of times...had the honor to be his driver for his visit to Norman. I have always described him as a gentle bear of a man. Tall and powerful but comfortable with his gentle side. This beautiful picture book comes from that sensitive, gentle, deeply respectful side of his nature. Flats Brown and his buddy, Caleb, are junk yard dogs, but they're gentle souls, and Flats loves to sing the blues. Unfortunately, their owner, A.J. Grubbs, IS as mean as a junk yard dog, and wants to solidify his reputation by forcing the dogs to fight. They run away, instead...and become masterful blues musicians...Flats plays his guitar and Caleb plays the bones...literally, the bones. A.J. keeps finding them, and they keep running, until Caleb just can't any more. The climax of the story is vintage Myers...love, not hate, wins the day. And Flats is still playing the blues someplace. That makes me smile. The illustrations are wonderful...Laden dresses Flats much like Jack Kerouac, jeans and tee shirt, or button down cowboy shirt with the arms cut off. She's pitch perfect too. Makes me miss Myers' gifts even more.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-11-07 00:00:00 Miguel aNGEL Santamaria Gomez While many readers best know the recently deceased Walter Dean Myers for his middle grade and YA novels, many of which sheding light on the certain on the African-American experience, he also penned a few picture books, and I fell in love with "The Blues of Flats Brown" just from seeing the cover. I've since read the book and WOW! Does it deliver. I planned to review it later this year, but when I learned of Walter's death a few weeks back, and found out about "Music In Our Schools Month" going in March, I had to bump up reviewing this book! Long ago in a junkyard lived a dog named Flats Brown, who loves playing the Blues for him and his fellow canine bud, Caleb. But their no-good owner, A.J. Grubbs wasn't keen on music (or much anything else) except making his dogs fight in the underground… But Flats and Caleb are lovers, not fighters, especially 'Ol Caleb, who with his arthirtis has no business being in a combat zone! Now these dogs are on the run, with the hopes of finding a peaceful life, where Flats can sing the Blues, without having to live it… Picture books are often equated to poetry, whether or not they rhyme, and especially with a story clearly hinging on the power of music such as this one. As I said about Nina Laden's "Bad Dog" this book would made a rad song, it would actually make an awesome audio drama. (if they could get some smoking musical talent [and possibly get James Earl Jones to narrate it while he's still on this planet] to really take it to town) Walter gives us a crackerjack southern twang to the narratitve that doesn't give the reader a migrane. When editors tell writers to use dialect selctively and sparingly, this books expertly shows what they mean. You feel the uncanny southern drawl in the text, without the reader tripping over awkward or uncommon spelling of words. It also avoids What I call the "Bumpkin Syndrome" that makes southern characters sound dumb when they're clearly anything but! Nina Laden's illusrations really sing in this book, while I love her quirky angled characters in her more cartoonish solo words, for "Flats Brown" she navigates the hazy nexus between "Anthropomorhic" and "Naturaltistic" schools of thought in the fantastical fauna landscape, delivering an idea of how a more modern reinterptration of the "Beatrix Potter" tradtion would look like: Given the "Deep South" treatment. Walter Dean Myers will be a man and author missed by many, my thoughts and prayers go out to the family, friends, and colleagues who knew him better than most. I've only just started to mine the uvre this writer has left behind, and this is also one of those picture books I would happily offer/recommend to older kids and even teens without hesitation, and it also would make a non-preachy conversation starter regarding animal abuse without scaring younger children, but still adressing it orgaincally and truthfully in the story. "The Blues of Flats Brown" is a poigant but hopeful tale that has the heart of the south, the prose of a lyricist, and the charm those of us lucky to have a "Flats" in our life know all too well…Even if they couldn't carry a tune. Originally Reviewed At TalkingAnimalAddicts.com