Book Review: Silent Music by James Rumford

Silent Music by James Rumford is an incredible, beautiful, inspiring picture book that pays homage to art, to language, and to Middle Eastern culture, while also giving a nod to the current war in Iraq and the hope for peace in the future. Run out and buy this book for your home or school library. It is amazing.

Ali is a boy who lives in Baghdad. While he loves playing soccer and listening to music and dancing, what he loves most is practicing Arabic calligraphy. Rumford's illustration in mixed media and collage in golden tones shows snippets of calligraphy and large Arabic words dancing across the pages, and when Ali describes his pen "stopping and starting, gliding and sweeping, leaping, dancing to the silent music in my head," we can really see the joy in the sweeps of the pen on every page.

Ali's secret hero is Yakut, a calligrapher from the thirteenth century. He tells a story of when the Mongols attacked Baghdad in 1258, and Yakut hid in a high tower where he shut out the war by writing "glistening letters of rhythm and grace." When the bombs fall on Baghdad in 2003, Ali does the same.To Ali, writing calligraphy is an escape, a peace within himself.

Two pages then show the Arabic words for "war" and "peace." The word peace, or salam, is harder to write than harb, or war. "..It resists me when I make the difficult waves and the slanted staff," he says. But it is salam that Ali chooses to practice, "until this word flows freely from my pen."

Rumford brings so much to so few words and his gorgeous illustrations.The text is so simple, but it gives rise to so many ideas and feelings about art, music, dancing, hard work, history, tradition, culture, war, peace, family, and beauty. It was a joy to read.

Silent Music by James Rumford