(listen to the podcast review)

Mole Music
By David McPhail

Does music have magic? Can it not only soothe the soul but also heal the wounds that lead to war and conflict?
David McPhail's wonderful book, Mole Music, ponders these deep questions through the journey of a mole underground who wants, above all else, to play beautiful music on the violin. It all begins when mole sees a violinist on his television set and he mail-orders his own violin. Of course, as any fledgling musician knows, particularly violinists, the first sounds to be made on a new instrument are often enough to drive one deep into despair.
Patience is the key to musicianship for most of us and mole, comfortable ensconced in undergound network of tunnels and rooms, has nothing but time on his hands.
And so he practices and practices and practices.
Meanwhile, just above his comfy hole in the ground, a little acorn nut takes to root and as mole learns to play his violin, the acorn takes root and begins to spring forth into the world as a tremendous tree, nurtured all the time by the music that mole is making in the soil. The melodies and rhythms act as nutrients to the tree, whose roots creep down towards mole.
The reader watches this silent transformation of the tree on each page as the story itself follow mole.
At one point, the silent story turns tragic, as two armies of warriors advance in confrontation, with the tree over Mole's hole the center of the action.
Mole, oblivious to all of this unfolding above him, continues to draw his bow across the strings and breathe in the peaceful overtures that he is creating. All the while, though, he thinks, no one is ever listening and he wonders about it, about whether his music is all for nothing.
The scene above shows the reader otherwise.
Mole's music filters through the air. The warriors realize that conflict is not the answer. They drop their weapons and embrace each other. Peace is now the melody of their lives.
Mole, still below ground, plays on, never quite knowing that it was his spirit that infused the world above.
Like Jan Brett's use of multiple frames to tell multiple aspects of a story, McPhail successful uses images to tell his tale. We root for mole and his music and hold our breath at the possibility of violence. We cheer the end of conflict. And we come away with the lesson that everyone's actions can play a part in this world, whether one realizes it or not at the time.