"Duke Ellington: Ambassador of Music" by Pamela Barclay and ilst. by Harold Henriksen is a children's introduction to the Jazz Giant. It covers his humble beginnings, interest in ragtime, expansion of an ensemble, trials in New York, and eventual success. Additionally, it also addresses the racial disparities of the early 1900's without commentary, but points to their significance in making his career more difficult to liftoff. This can be good opportunity to initiate a light but mature conversation about this chapter in american history, and how it affects people today. Furthermore, aside from this content, it is mostly a timeline in a book. The book is very detail-oriented despite it being directed at such a young audience. It tracks Ellington's love for music, personality, and ambitions, but does so in a sea of dates, names, places, and song titles. This can be very interesting to some readers but overwhelming for others to keep track of or remember. Finally, the artwork that accompanies roughly every third page does assist in mediating this dense presence of details by noting key events described.
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