Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music by Margarita Engle (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music by Margarita Engle Elizabeth Bush Engle, Margarita Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music; illus. by Rafael López. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015 42p ISBN 978-0-544-10229-3 $16.99 R 4-8 yrs “On an island of music/ in a city of drumbeats/ the drum dream girl/ dreamed.” The unnamed island is Cuba, and the unnamed girl, as explained in an historical note, is real-life musician Millo Castro Zaldarriaga. The dream is her desire to play the conga drums, bongo drums, and “moon bright timbales,” a privilege reserved for boys and men in 1920s Cuba. Her older sisters form an all-girl dance band and invite her to play, but her father forbids it. He does, however, agree to put the final decision in the hands of a percussion teacher, who recognizes the girl’s talent and guides her to public performance. Engle’s free-verse poem leaves Millo playing bongos for moonlit dancers, with the somewhat didactic commentary that “girls should always/ be allowed to play/ drums/ and both girls and boys/ should feel free/ to dream.” (A closing note adds that Millo eventually performed for President Theodore Roosevelt in 1932.) López’s acrylic paintings, with textured, knife-edged shapes layered onto dappled backdrops reminiscent of murals, are vivid and lush, offering symbolic imagery that is challenging yet accessible to children who are just beginning to figure out visual language. Even without the specifics offered in the closing note, young viewers will be able to reflect on the meaning of the winged drum in a bird cage, the father lassoing his girl down from the clouds with slender ribbons, the identity of the straw-hatted man who sits with his sketchpad on a cloud, observing Millo play her bongos. With its emphasis on artistry and visual metaphor, this title bears a strong kinship with Yuyi Morales’ Viva Frida (BCCB 12/14), but it also brings an accessibility that young viewers (and teachers) will appreciate. [End Page 444] Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois