When Angels Sing

Winner of a Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor and a Robert F. Sibert Honor! Celebrate music icon Carlos Santana in this vibrant, rhythmic picture book from the author of the New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters. Carlos Santana loved to listen to his father play el violín. It was a sound that filled the world with magic and love and feeling and healing—a sound that made angels real. Carlos wanted to make angels real, too. So he started playing music. Carlos tried el clarinete and el violín, but there were no angels. Then he picked up la guitarra. He took the soul of the Blues, the brains of Jazz, and the energy of Rock and Roll, and added the slow heat of Afro-Cuban drums and the cilantro-scented sway of the music he’d grown up with in Mexico. There were a lot of bands in San Francisco but none of them sounded like this. Had Carlos finally found the music that would make his angels real?

This classic Christmas story of rekindled spirit is the inspiration behind the 2013 holiday film Angels Sing, starring Harry Connick Jr., Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Lyle Lovett. This is the tale of Michael, who was eight years old on the Christmas Day he lost his brother David. The day had started out well--Michael and David opened their presents, and much to their delight, they had both received ice skates from Santa. With great excitement they set out to the pond behind their grandparents' house in New Mexico to try them out. But the pond wasn't safe, and David didn't make it out of its icy cold depths. For Michael, the meaning of Christmas changed forever that day. Thirty years later Michael is the neighborhood Grinch. "To me the only wonder of Christmas is not why that tragedy marked me so," Michael says, "but how the rest of my family can seem so completely unscathed." He scowls at his neighbors' fervent holiday traditions and at his own children, who want nothing more than to string Christmas lights through their front yard. But when another holiday disaster strikes and his own cherished young son loses his spirit to live, Michael searches deep within himself to root out the anger, the fear, and the pain of the past. Can he bear to remember exactly what happened that Christmas Day? And will he make peace with this past for the sake of his own children?

Hearing the Angels Sing is a wonderfully inspiring book. Peter Sterling, in telling his uplifting story of encountering the angels and being shown his destiny as one of God's harpists, encourages readers to open to the deeper dimensions of life for themselves. There is authentic humility in suggesting that if the author seeks and receives such profound guidance from the angels, anyone can do it. In writing so openly and courageously about his life, Peter demonstrates the commitment required to work with angels as well as the rich spiritual rewards of finding one's true path. In a troubled world, reuniting with the angels is becoming a potent way for people to reconnect and reclaim their spiritual essences. Peter's exquisite Harp Magic provides a portal through which the reality of the angels can be felt and experienced. One of the pleasures of reading his book is following the author's trail of synchronicities and angelic guidance through the challenges, distractions, revelations, and obstacles to emerge as a world-class harpist in service to the angels. It is exhilarating and deeply encouraging to learn how intimately and creatively the angels can interact with our lives if we just let them. Hearing the Angels Sing is a must-read for anyone drawn to the angels, and for those who already know what a salve Peter's music is to the souls of the openhearted and the spiritually minded, the book will yet further deepen your enjoyment of Harp Magic. --Timothy Wyllie Author of Dolphins, ETs & Angels, The Return of the Rebel Angels, and coauthor of Ask Your Angels

An Ezra Jack Keats Book Award Winner A New York Times Best Illustrated Book An NPR Best Book of the Year A Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book A Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner A picture book celebration of the indomitable Muddy Waters, a blues musician whose fierce and electric sound laid the groundwork for what would become rock and roll. Muddy Waters was never good at doing what he was told. When Grandma Della said the blues wouldn’t put food on the table, Muddy didn’t listen. And when record producers told him no one wanted to listen to a country boy playing country blues, Muddy ignored them as well. This tenacious streak carried Muddy from the hardscrabble fields of Mississippi to the smoky juke joints of Chicago and finally to a recording studio where a landmark record was made. Soon the world fell in love with the tough spirit of Muddy Waters. In blues-infused prose and soulful illustrations, Michael Mahin and award-winning artist Evan Turk tell Muddy’s fascinating and inspiring story of struggle, determination, and hope.

Yes, I talk with angels, great Beings whose lives infuse and create all of Nature. In another time and culture I might have been cloistered in a convent or a temple, or less pleasantly, burnt as a witch. Being a practical, down-to-earth person, I had never imagined that such contact would be possible or useful. Yet, when this com-munication began to occur, it did so in a way that I could not dispute. -- Dorothy Maclean From wartime employment with the British government to co-founding the Findhorn Community in Scotland, and the Lorian Association in Canada, Dorothy Maclean's life story is an account of a journey through self-discovery to an awareness of the forces that give order to creation. The success and fame of the Findhorn gardens arose in part from Dorothy's telepathic contact with these kingdoms. Many of the messages she received are included in this book, and their wisdom quickens an awareness of our partnership with all the evolutionary streams of life.

Magical portraits of a photographer’s dog, in elaborate Christmas compositions Bark! The Herald Angels Sing will bring a smile to even the most devoted Scrooge. Decked out in the finest of holiday garb, strutting against backgrounds that evoke locales as varied as Charles Dickens’ London and the ice floes of Antarctica, an adorable dog strikes a pose. Another Christmas card in the bag. But the scenes weren't always so ornate. Photographer Peter Thorpe's first dog holiday shoot went more like this: dog, pair of antlers, red Rudolph nose, done. That card went out to family and friends—and the rest, as they say, is history. From Rudolph in 1990 to Santa in 2015, Paddy and Raggles, donned in festive costumes, adorned cards every December without fail. Collected here, the photographs—and the outtakes—include Paddy as tree-topper and Raggles dressed as a sheep in a stable, Robin Red Breast, and, of course, Ebenezer Scrooge. In prose that accompanies each image, Thorpe describes his inspiration for a given card. He kept to photographic traditions of yesteryear, making his own sets and props—no digital retouching here. With sly humor and faux how-to directions, he suggests how readers might attempt to capture the same scenes with their pups. (Spoiler alert: Dog models must be able to balance on top of a Christmas tree and their owners will need woodworking skills to build giant mousetraps.) This book is sure to become a tradition of its very own.

To escape the wrath of a deceived husband, Miguel Saavedra, a poet of sorts, abandons the good-time existential vacuum of MiamiÍs uprooted younger Cubans for New York. There he is caught in a web of plots spun by pro- and anti-Castro agents. The surrealistic flow of days and nights which follow lead the protagonist from university lecture hall to transvestite bar, from the arms of a beautiful woman to the dark regions of a basement santerÕa temple. As the barriers between dream and reality, fact and fiction disappear, the ultimate purpose of MiguelÍs life is unveiled before him: Miguel, like St. Michael, must confront the eternal foe: angels and archangels of evil incarnate. Omar TorresÍ Fallen Angels Sing, an English recreation by the author of his novel Apenas un bolero, is a magnificent tour de force that keeps the reader hanging on by a thread through to its unexpected ending.

Although her death at the tender age of 28 ended her promising literary career prematurely, Magda Isanos (1916-1944) ranks among the greatest poets in the history of Romanian literature. When Angels Sing: Poetry and Prose of Magda Isanos presents, for the first-time, English language versions of her writings, revealing their beauty, sensitivity, and aura of mysticism, along with a premonition of impending doom. Born in Iași, in northeastern Romania, Magda was raised in Chișinău (in what is now Moldova) before she returned to the city of her birth to attend the University of Iași. While a student there, Magda became active in the most important literary circle of the era, centered around the journal Însemnări ieșene. This group included many of the greatest literary voices of Romania’s version of the lost generation, among them George Topîrceanu, Mihail Sadoveanu, Eusebiu Camilar (her future husband), and Mihai Codreanu. One of the most remarkable female voices of her generation, the poetry and prose of Magda Isanos mirror the troubled era in which she lived, as well as the tragedy of her own life. The themes expounded in her literary works are universal. From a sense of impending doom, decrying the horrors of war, to a longing for peace, and a boundless hope for a brighter future for all of humanity, her literary creations reflect a wide spectrum of emotions. When Angels Sing is the first English language edition of poems and prose by this remarkable Romanian writer. It includes an introduction on the poet’s life and work by Dr. A.K. Brackob, along with a postscript by the poet’s late daughter, Elisabeta Isanos. A series of original illustrations by talented young Romanian artist, Alexandra Chiriță give visual expression to the literary creations of Magda Isanos in this beautiful volume, making When Angels Sing a book that belongs in any representative collection of world literature.