Ty's One-Man Band

by Mildred Pitts Walter

Book Overview

Ty's One-Man Band is featured on Reading Rainbow, the acclaimed PBS-TV series celebrating books and reading. Consultants to this award-winning series include the American Library Association, the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0590401785
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Length: 40 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.3" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Words as music

This electric 34-page picture book makes language into music. Written in 1980, the story is set in about the 1930s, in the rural South.A young boy's mother washed clothes and his father was busy unloading feed for the chickens. "The sun rose aflame. It quickly dried the dew and baked the town. Another hot, humdrum day."Ty asked his brother to join him in a walk to the pond. When Jason declined, Ty went alone. He took in the big trees, which sank their roots deep and lifted the branches up, up, up toward the sky. Then he heard a step-th-hump, step-th-hump, step-th-hump, and compared the mystery sound to the churr-rrr-rrr of raccoon babies and the purr-rrr of kittens.It came from a man carrying a bundle, a man with one leg and a leg made of a wooden peg. The man sat down by the pond and washed himself, unwrapped his bundle and ate apples, cheese and bread. After washing his dishes, he began to juggle them. His juggling made music, which the language creates: tink-ki-tink-ki-ki-tink-ki-tink. And so on, for a whole page.Ty watched from the grass. Then came a rumble like thunder in the distance--a train. Woo-woo-woo-ee-ee-eee. Ty forgot the man as he listened to the clackety-clack of and the train whistle as the wheels died away. The man he had been watching leapt out of the grass and laughed, introduced himself as Andro, a one-man band. He asked Ty to borrow a washboard, two wooden spoons, a tin pail and a comb.Ty returned home and stunned his brother, sister, father and mother with the story of the one-legged man, but borrowed everything he needed by sundown. The next 12 pages of the book bcome a veritable concert.There are many lessons in this book. The primary one is how little one needs for happiness. The second is that language itself can be music.Children love it. Alyssa A. Lappen

Making of Music

I am an elementary education student and I have to read 25 childrens' literature books. I decided on this book by just randomly choosing this book. I like this book a lot! I like the fact that the man with the story took something ordinary and made it extraordinary. Using everyday items to make music just goes to show you that it's not what you have but how you use what you have.