Toronto musician Reva Marin’s new book on the great Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson is a well-balanced and fair-minded biography for young people. Marin gives the reader enough background about jazz styles and the elements of music to illustrate something of Peterson’s achievements. Putting music into words (“using verbal language to describe the language of music”) is a difficult task, and one in which metaphor and simile are often more effective than plainer or more technical descriptions. Marin doesn’t use figurative language to give her readers a sense of what it might feel like to listen to Peterson’s music, and consequently, for all its informative detail, the text remains a little flat.

Aimed at early teen readers, Oscar emphasizes the pianist’s early years, in a household where all five children were expected to learn two musical instruments to a high standard, even if they lacked the luxuries and privileges of many other Canadian children. When the Petersons were having trouble meeting the payments on their piano, they chose to do without food to save money; weak with hunger, the children were sent to bed for a few days, and the piano was saved. Anecdotes such as this one, or the one about how Daisy, Oscar’s sister and first piano teacher, lost her nerve as a performer, help to bring the story alive. Marin frames Oscar’s story with the issue of race, opening with a description of racist injustice experienced by 10-year-old Oscar at school, and ending with a warm statement by Oscar about how their love for music brings performers together despite differences of race

As well as explaining at appropriate points within the text such key concepts as improvisation, Oscar provides generous end material, including a glossary of jazz terms, suggestions for further reading, lists of videos and web sites, and an annotated listening guide. Sixteen pages of black-and-white photos supply appealing faces for the many names in the text, and highlighted insets give brief biographies of jazz masters such as Art Tatum and Ella Fitzgerald.