When Angels Sing

July 15, 2018
From the three-way scrimmage among his great-aunt, his father, and his mother for the right to name him--his mother won--to his growth as a musician, Carlos yearns to hear the song of angels.Instrument after instrument fails to resonate within his heart until the chords of a guitar stand his arm hairs on end. "An angel's breath?" But not even his beloved guitar can drown out the English-speaking bullies in San Francisco schools, so he runs away and returns to Tijuana. His family, however disagrees. They'd left Mexico for a better life, and they will not let Carlos stay behind. Bit by bit, the city's diverse cultural harmonies become one: "the soul of the blues, ...the brains of jazz, ...the energy of rock and roll...the slow heat of Afro-Cuban drums and the cilantro-scented sway of the music you'd grown up with." The Santana Blues Band plays through Carlos' homesickness, plays through Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, plays through Vietnam's destruction and America's unrest, until, in front of 400,000 people in Woodstock, the angels finally sing--not to but within Carlos. Ramírez's double-page-spread acrylic-and-enamel-marker images evoke the vibrant electric energy of Huichol yarn art. The years denoting milestones in Carlos' story subtly blend into the multicolored pages. Mahin's second-person lyrical narrative unites the disparate elements that ultimately became Santana. A musical journey perfectly aimed at young readers' excitement to know what they will be. (author's note, bibliography, discography) (Picture book/biography. 6-11)

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Starred review from June 1, 2018
Grades K-3 *Starred Review* As he did in his 2017 biography of Muddy Waters, Mahin celebrates the music of a popular artist while delving into the soul from which it springs. In the case of Carlos Santana, according to Mahin, it is his deep desire to make music so glorious the angels would listen, just as his father's violin music seemed to fill the world with magic and love. But throughout his life, Santana has struggled. As a youth, he tried several instruments unsuccessfully. His mother moved him to Tijuana, where he dressed in costume and played popular songs on the violin for tourist coins. It was there that he heard guitar music and learned to play. In exhilarating language, peppered with Spanish words?and often invoking angels?the narrative brings Santana to San Francisco as his musical abilities, his sense of self, and a growing awareness about injustice fuse just as the various musical influences?�blues, jazz, �Afro-Caribbean?fuse to make his sound. The story ends at Woodstock, but an afterword chronicles the rest. Mahin's words match well with Ramirez's intense, beautifully colored folk art, a mosaic of brown faces, young and old. The pictures demand second, even third looks whether Santana is playing at Aquatic Park or sweeping the floor at Tick Tock Burgers. A biography fitting of the man's music.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)