Mariah Delany Lendin

By Sheila Greenwald

Book Overview

When Whitney Balliett's American Musicians appeared in the Fall of 1986, the acclaim it received was universal. Leonard Feather, writing in the Los Angeles Times, said "no other writer now living can write with comparable grace and equal enthusiasm about everyone from Jack Teagarden and Art Tatum to Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman." And Bruce Cook in The New Leader called the book "the quintessential Whitney Balliett, the cream of the cream, a collection that leaves no doubt about his strength." That book gathered together all of Balliett's profiles of jazz instrumentalists. Here, in the revised edition of American Singers, Balliett has added thirteen new biographical profiles to double the size of the book and provide the perfect complement to American Musicians. It now contains all the profiles on singers that Balliett has written for The New Yorker. Alongside original chapters on such great vocalists as Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Joe Turner and Alberta Hunter, Balliett has added fresh portraits of Mel Torme, Julius La Rosa, George Shearing, and Peggy Lee. To his study of four masters of the cabaret (Hugh Shannon, Mabel Mercer, Bobby Short, and Blossom Dearie) he has joined a fifth, Julie Wilson. There are new chapters on singer-pianists Cleo Brown and Nellie Lutcher, as well as on Carol Sloane, Betty Carter, and David Frishberg. Perhaps most notable is his extended profile of Alec Wilder, one of America's most lyrical and moving songwriters and composers. In the three decades that he has written for The New Yorker, Whitney Balliett has earned the reputation as America's foremost jazz critic. The late Philip Larkin described him as a "writer who brings jazz journalism to the verge of poetry," and Gene Lees called him "one of the most graceful essayists in the English language on any subject." He has an unsurpassed ability to convey in words the sound of a singer's voice, and he makes readers feel, as one observer put it, that they are "sitting with Balliett and his subject and listening in."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440453275
• ISBN13: 9780440453277
• Release Date: February 1986
• Publisher: Dell / Yearling
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Age Range: 5 to 11 years
• Grade Range: Kindergarten to Grade 6

Customer Reviews

Lending Library

Mariah Delany always has an idea for making some extra money. She's not especially fond of books even though her parents are bibliophiles. When her mother laments about the local library being closed, Mariah sees her next great venture: turning her parents' collection into a lending library for her school chums. Things, understandably, go down hill from there. The Mariah Delany Lending Library Disaster is a 1970s vision of BookCrossing gone horribly wrong. In their enthusiasm to finally see their daughter interested in books, Mariah's parents are blind to what she's really doing. I find it baffling that Mariah would end up such an opposite of her parents but perhaps that the personal conceit of being a parent of two budding bibliophiles. Mariah's parents also haven't ever bothered to tell her about the gems in their collection. So to Mariah, these books are just a resource that is going to waste. The story is built around a family that never communicates. As this book is aimed at the upper grades of elementary school, Mariah's crash course in the value of books both in monetary terms as sources of information and entertainment is a lesson for children reading the book. Of course, if they're already reading books, they probably don't need this lesson reiterated.

For all the entrepreneurial kids in your life!

I believe this book originally came out in the 70's, but it is incredible how little times change. Mariah, who has little use for books, goes with her mother to the library, whose hours have been shortened due to cutbacks. Sound familiar?? Now Mariah's bookloving family just has TONS of books all over the house which seem to just fill shelfspace. Mariah, lacking enthusiasm for school, but running over with creative entrepreneurship, decides to privately fill the gap left by the library cutbacks. She researches cataloguing and memberships with the help of the friendly local librarian and soon is lending her family's books out to the whole school. Free memberships, but she figures she will soon be raking in the dough with late fees. Disaster strikes when everyone avoids her at school rather than paying fees or returning books, and simultaneously her parents start noticing holes in the bookshelves. This book is sure to be a hit with kids who love books and kids who can identify instead with Mariah. I thought it was well-written, funny, and Mariah is a very likeable character.Check out her Author-of-the-Month Club too!