I adore stringed instruments and the music they create. Imagine being able to play the most beautiful music in the world and refusing to do so because of war. That’s the amazing basis of today’s true nonfiction picture book biography.
Christy Mihaly is an award-winning author of books for both children and teens, including Patience, Patches! (Dial), Water: A Deep Dive of Discovery (Barefoot Books),and The Supreme Court and Us (Albert Whitman). Music and Silence was shaped by Christy’s years playing trumpet in many ensembles, her years working as a lawyer, and her year living in Spain. Christy currently lives in rural Vermont, where she enjoys learning how to play the cello. You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram, BlueSky, or Facebook.
MUSIC AND SILENCE: THE PASSION AND PROTEST OF PABLO CASALS is a picture book biography about the aforementioned cellist from Catalonia, Spain. The Spanish Civil War and World War II left his country under the rule of a dictator. People were driven out of the country and Pau protested as loudly as he could with silence, refusing to play again until the dictator was removed and his homeland was restored. I had not heard of his protest or his music (as he was before my time) and had to look up more information after reading this story. I found a video of the famous concert mentioned at the end of the book (old and grainy, but stunning music nonetheless). I admit I was enchanted.
Welcome Christy!
Me: Can you tell us a little bit about your writing journey. When did you start writing picture books? How has that brought you to writing this picture book?
Christy: Jena, thanks so much for inviting me to chat with you. Kudos on all your publishing successes! I must say I adore your watercolors.
This question is interesting, because I started writing for children in 2011 and I had the idea to write a book about Pablo Casals almost immediately. So, I’ve lived with a Casals book in my head for more than a decade.
For the 2011-12 school year, my husband earned a paid sabbatical, which enabled the family to move to Spain. That year, my husband worked as a visiting professor at the law school in Sevilla and my daughter attended a local school. I resolved to spend the year working on a long-held dream, writing for kids.
Living abroad was incredibly inspirational because I encountered so much that was unfamiliar and new. Everywhere I looked, I thought, “Oh, kids would like to know about that! I could write about that!” I was focused on magazine writing, and I pitched and sold an article about the sailors and navigators of southern Spain who sailed with Columbus. (Every Spanish school child knows that without those Spaniards on board, Columbus would have failed.) I also wrote and placed a story based on my daughter’s experiences as a foreigner at school. Maybe I could do this!
We made good friends in Spain, and learned from them about the country’s recent history, including about the Spanish Civil War and life under Franco. I also learned more about Pablo Casals. I’d known about Casals the cellist for some time, especially since I’d started taking cello lessons a few years earlier. I mean, all cellists know Casals – he is a giant presence in the cello world, who revolutionized how the cello is played, how it is thought of as an instrument. I’d heard the story of his miraculous discovery of the Bach Cello Suites when he was a boy in Barcelona.
But, while I was in Spain, I also gained an appreciation of Casals’s towering stature as a national hero, a humanitarian and peace activist. We took a trip to visit friends in Barcelona, and they drove us to the Casals museum (Museu Pau Casals). There I saw not only the original gourd instrument that his father had made for him, but also footage of his appearances at the United Nations General Assembly. It was so moving to see the heartfelt appeal for peace Casals delivered to that body, and to witness the reverence that he inspired among the delegates.
I realized then that young people in the United States don’t know about Casals, and I thought that they should. Maybe I could write a book for them! So. Fourteen years later, here we are.
Me: Pau Casals was an incredibly gifted cellist with a deep desire for peace in his home country. What gave you the idea to write his biography as a picture book?
Christy: As I mentioned, my inspiration came at the museum, watching the 40-year-old television coverage of his last appearance at the United Nations. The moment felt almost holy. I wanted to share it with kids. (Ironically, that 1971 visit to the UN does not appear in the main text of Music and Silence. Because, revisions.)
I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to distill the essence of Casals’s long and eventful life into the pages of a picture book. But, I found only one picture book biography of him in existence, and it’s written in Spanish. So I had to try.
Me: I understand that this was your third approach to the biography, with shifting points of view each iteration. Yet from the outside this appears to be such a deceptively simple manuscript. How many drafts did it really take to get to this final state? How long did it take from first idea to final published book?
Christy: Yah, reaching that simplicity was very complicated.
I think it took more than 50 drafts to get here. And yes, the time between the first idea to final publication has been 14 years.
The inspiration for this book showed up when I was at the very beginning of my writing journey. I knew next to nothing about how to write a good picture book biography. So, over the next decade plus, I studied and practiced. I wrote and published other books. And I kept returning to Casals. I wrote a first draft, revised of course (a lot), got rejected, revised, found an agent, revised, submitted, got rejected, revised substantially, received some editor love, signed a contract, revised some more, and finally, here we are with Music and Silence, gorgeously illustrated by Mariona Cabassa.
Some story approaches I tried and discarded were having Casals’s cello narrate the tale, a double history of Casals and his instrument, and a verse version. I also tried writing it as a middle grade biography, but it wasn’t singing.
At first, I wrote the picture book biography from his birth to death. One of the most difficult aspects of this project was deciding what to leave out. I finally resolved that when I identified the heart of the story I wanted to tell: how this man of extraordinary talent and vision, who loved music deep in his soul, nonetheless chose to lay down his cello and cease performing, in order to stand up for peace and principle. And how his moral courage moved the people around him. That’s how I identified the concluding scene and knew I needed to omit his remaining 23 years. But look in the back matter for more!
Me: Can you tell us a bit about your research process for this book? How long did it take you to research all the different facts and tidbits that went into this story? Any favorite discoveries or research methods?
Christy: I was still researching when I started to write. (I don’t necessarily recommend that approach, but I did it because I was impatient to write, then I realized I needed a deeper understanding of his life before I could do it justice.) So the research was spread over many years.
I’m a book person, so I started by reading all the books. Casals left two co-written memoirs, essentially conversations with a biographer, and others have published complete biographies. I read articles, including newspaper coverage of his concerts. I interviewed other musicians, including a cellist who was selected to play Casals’s cello for several years. I also listened to many recordings of his music.
And I was delighted to discover a trove of video archives. I loved watching old films of Casals teaching master classes. I viewed a couple of documentaries made in the 1950s and watched interviews of Casals as an old man. And the iconic UN footage, of course. I felt so fortunate that he lived long enough that his admirers made and preserved this record of his later years. (Of course, the more I learned, the more difficult it seemed to omit all this wonderful material in the picture book.)
If readers would like to see some of the footage for themselves, we collected a playlist, posted on the EBYR YouTube channel. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/@EBYRTV/playlists.
Me: What is one thing that surprised you in writing this book?
Christy: I’m surprised that, after all the years living with this story, my eyes still fill with tears when I read the book aloud, in the final passage.
Me: Mariona Cabassa’s illustrations in this book are stunning. The way she uses such bright colors and how they sweep across the page are just magical. I can almost feel the music! Did you have any illustration surprises? Any favorites?
Christy: I am so, so thrilled with Mariona’s art. I think she is just brilliant. I had the good fortune to work with Mariona in creating Barefoot Books WATER: A Deep Dive of Discovery, which came out in 2021. Her art there was gorgeous and colorful, and added an extra pop that really elevated that book.
As an artist from Catalonia, Mariona has a special connection to Casals. And she is a cellist, too! Clearly it was fated that she should bring her art to this book. (Be sure to read her lovely Illustrator’s Note.)
I love her birds, of course. I encourage readers to look for the different birds throughout, and to consider why Mariona included them and what they might mean. And I agree, she succeeds so well in creating a visual representation of music. (And silence.)
It’s hard to choose a favorite spread, though I do love the one that ended up on the cover, with the birds flying from the cello up toward the war planes dropping bombs. Others that I especially appreciate are the illustration showing Pau’s discovery of the cello (when he was a boy), and the one showing him later in life, in darkened profile sitting with his cello alone in exile. Mariona conveys the emotions so clearly in each painting.
Me: Any advice would you give to aspiring picture book writers?
Christy: First, write from your heart. You’ll live with your words for a long time. If it’s nonfiction, the research and writing will take months or years, so you’ll want a topic that you’re interested in and curious about, that won’t bore you. For fiction, write a story in which you love spending time with your characters and thinking about their challenges and solutions. Either way, your manuscript will go through many revisions. If you’re lucky, you’ll take it through the long path to publication and on to marketing. So – write about something you’re passionate about.
Second, find your people. Join SCBWI or other writers’ organizations. Work with a critique group. If you can’t find one that works for you, form a group with other writers –in-person or virtual. Getting fresh eyes on your work and listening to others’ perspectives and suggestions (whether or not you accept their changes) will strengthen your work and inspire you to write more. And remember to support and celebrate the successes of other writers. It matters.
Finally, keep going. As a wise editor told me, persistence is more important than talent. Good luck to you, and hang in there.
That’s great advice. Thank you for stopping by my blog today Christy.
But wait, dear readers! There’s more! There’s also a giveaway of this wonderful picture book (US and Canadian residents only). You can enter the SweetWidget here. Good luck!