Double Bass Blues, by Andrea J. Loney, Illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez

 Loney, A. J., & Gutierrez, R. (2019). Double bass blues. Alfred A. Knopf.

Double Bass Blues is a vibrant picture book which depicts the story of a young boy named Nic, who finds inspiration for his music on the way home from school during the applause after a concert, a rainy bus ride, a walk, and an otherwise bustling post school commute.The illustrator uses the elements of color, line, shape, and space to fantastic, expressionist-esque effect

The Caldecott honor award winning book significantly exaggerates the shapes that make up Nic’s world to perfectly capture the mood of the story. The line expresses the movement of Nic playing the double bass and his ride home. An obvious example of this is the bars of music which appear when Nic plays his Double Bass. They twist around and embrace Nic and his family, even forming an arching halo around Nic’s Head on the cover. Another example is the lines which make up the illustration’s outlines. A bright yellow one swoops around Nic’s blue sweater when a man pushes him aside, supplementing his look of surprise. This strong use of line is present throughout the book. The book frequently uses shape to create a fantastical, improbable world, such as the stairs on his way up to his apartment, which go up and down irrespective of the fact that Nic is going up, not down. Likewise, the color complements the text by being as vibrant as the story being told. The artistry truly brings this book to life in an exciting, refreshing way. 

While the illustrations of Double Bass Blues are otherwise flawless, they do run into one major snag. The text is as colorful as the illustrations, and therefore becomes difficult to see on some of the pages. Additionally, the sound related text is scattered about the page in a way that benefits the artistic style of the book, yet significantly decreases its accessibility. Words like “clap”, “plunk”, and “woosh” get lost in the drawings due to their color, which supplements the rest of the illustration. At the end of the book, these words become crucial during Nic’s second performance of the book, in which he uses the sounds that he heard on his way home in his musical performance. 

 

The book’s diversity is one of its strong suits as well; Nic and his family are black, as are some of his classmates. The reader also sees people who are white, middle eastern, and so on. Though the illustrations occasionally outshine the text, this book is altogether a bright, inviting work which readers can practically hear the music and feel the sound to.