Bird & Diz

An award-winning author and a Caldecott Medalist improvise a playful tribute to the creators of bebop—Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

When sax player Charlie “Bird” Parker and trumpeter John “Dizzy” Gillespie make music together, they toss notes back and forth like a game of tag and chase each other with sounds. As Dizzy’s cheeks puff out like a frog with glasses, the two friends beep and bop and push each other to create a new kind of music—a thrilling fast jazz full of surprises. Blending a playful, rhythmic narration with expressive illustrations as fluid and dynamic as their subjects, this tribute to the masters of bebop by acclaimed biographer Gary Golio and beloved artist Ed Young will have readers hankering to listen for themselves.

“The free verse is arranged to conjure speed and playfulness, and the imagery is amusing, i.e., Dizzy's puffy cheeks are compared to a frog's. ... The ever-experimental Young uses gouache and bursts of orange and pink pastel strokes to form Gillespie and his hot trumpet, whereas Parker's saxophone sounds are rendered in greens and blues. ... Irresistible. -School Library Journal (starred review) Exuberant and gorgeous-like the music. -Kirkus Reviews”

The book’s language and images are every bit as vibrant as the music they celebrate.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The free verse is arranged to conjure speed and playfulness, and the imagery is amusing, i.e., Dizzy’s puffy cheeks are compared to a frog’s. ... The ever-experimental Young uses gouache and bursts of orange and pink pastel strokes to form Gillespie and his hot trumpet, whereas Parker's saxophone sounds are rendered in greens and blues. ... Irresistible.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

Exuberant and gorgeous—like the music.
—Kirkus Reviews

An impressionistic story of a “be-bop-a-skoodley” friendship comes together in the juxtaposition of a series of opposites—rendering and abstraction, saturation and resistance, darkness and light—reflecting the special partnership of two distinct musical legends.... The resulting combination of words and imagery introduces the unique players and captures the controlled, explosive frenzy of their musical collaboration.
—Horn Book

Bebop has never been so beautiful.
—BookPage

Like saxophonist Parker and trumpeter Gillespie, author Golio and illustrator Young are each acclaimed artists in their own right. By bringing together their individual forms and styles of artistic expression, however, they contribute equally to the creation of a product with its unique meaning and synergy.
—Literacy Daily

This could indeed be an inspiring impetus for an artistic enterprise, but it’s also an informative introduction to two jazz greats.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Illustrations flow through the text, depicting the music with abstract images. Bright colors are used throughout and serve to give readers an idea of the sound qualities of bebop music.
—School library Connection

Gary Golio is the author of several best-selling and award-winning musical picture-book biographies, including Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow, When Bob Met Woody, and Spirit Seeker: John Coltrane’s Musical Journey. Gary Golio lives in Hudson Valley, New York.

Ed Young  (1931-2023) was the illustrator of more than one hundred books for children, many of which he also wrote. Among them is the Caldecott Medal winner Lon Po Po, which he both wrote and illustrated, as well as Bird & Diz and Smile: How Young Charlie Chaplin Taught the World to Laugh (and Cry), both by Gary Golio. Ed Young's artwork was inspired by the philosophy of Chinese painting.

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