Jazz on a Saturday Night

Jazz on a Saturday Night by Leo and Diane Dillon is a nonfiction book, celebrating great jazz musicians. It's in a picture book format with large paintings and a sentence of text per page. The book begins with a group of musicians gathering, setting up and preparing for a performance. The book begins with an introduction and the authors/illustrators include this collection of artist never played entirely together but their paths did cross and they most likely played together on and off. The text not only shares famous musicians and what their instruments were, it includes elements of jazz informing the reader more about this genre of music.

The back two pages give the reader a more in depth biographical sketch of each musician. In this book the reader is introduced to Miles Davis, Max Roach, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Stanley Clarke and Ella Fitzgerald. The best part of the book, I found at the library was the inclusion of a CD with jazz music for the reader to listen to. I know my students will love to move to the beat and get a really good feel for jazz. I found this book in a search for introducing various forms of nonfiction text to kindergarten students. I love it even more with the emphasis on music, we need to do more with this language.