Picture Book of the Day: Bird & Diz

Bird & Diz, written by Gary Golio, art by Ed Young.  This inventive tribute to jazz greats Charlie "Bird" Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and the 1945 bebop song "Salt Peanuts" folds out accordion-style when celebrating the exuberant spirit and captivating energy of bebop.  Golio's prose cuts right to the heart of the collaborative action:  "Bird and Diz are friends/who play together like kids."  When the two musicians turn and face each other, they don't have to say much, and then the notes soar and their instruments start interacting with another.  Golio's words snap and crackle, brilliantly conveying the sounds of the music and the joy of a pair of giants trying to playfully top each other .  Looking very much like a modern art creation, Young's experimental art provides bursts of unusual colors as the images swirl and explode across the pages.  As the music speeds up frantically with Bird's flying fingers across the bass ("is that smoke coming out of his horn?") telling Dizzy "top that," the dynamic images spell out the word "bebop" and the reader's heart soars.  You fold the book all the way out, reach the end of one side, and then flip the book over to read the rest--clearing a table or room on the floor to see the entire book in its full glory adds to the fun.  It all leads to a joyous embrace between the two musicians and a nice celebratory "Be-bop-a-skoodley;/Doo-wa!"  Accompanied by a cool photo of the two guys, an excellent afterword talks about bebop and tells young readers how they can listen to and watch Bird and Diz play "Salt Peanuts."  Really cool!