posted on 21 Mar 2022

Piano Fingers by Caroline Magerl

Australian author and illustrator, Caroline Magerl has created a really charming  story of the magical qualities of creativity and music. The book is a visual feast and it may well be the illustrations that are the first things that hit you but it would be a tremendous mistake to neglect the superb writing that accompanies the feast of visuals.

Magerl, a self-taught artist who has won plenty of awards and accolades over her thirty year career, certainly knows how to capture an atmosphere and a sparkling idea in a few, lean well-chosen words. Little Bea comes from a family of musicians that play ‘big musical things’ and her older sister, Isla plays the violin which is gloriously described as her ‘honey fog machine’. As Bea searches for the instrument that will become hers she experiments with a drum and a triangle to no avail and goes off in search of something BIG. Then she finds it……

“On tiny gold wheels, it waited. A baby mountain. It smelled gently of mouse.”

A piano! And not just any piano but one that is home to Maestro Gus – a flamboyant cat in a cravat and velvet dressing gown. Gus, with his conductor’s baton at the ready, encourages Bea to try the keys until “…music bloomed”. It was:

“A sound more delicious than mulberry between your toes.”

In Bea’s imagination she’s a natural! But playing to an empty room has limited satisfaction – until Gus hits on the idea of bringing Isla and her honey fog machine into the same room for the two girls to create their own unique duet.

“A huff, a hum, a silky growl rolled around the walls, strolled across the ceiling, shimmied in the curtains….to wherever music goes.”

The marvellous drawings fill the page with colour and bring Bea, Isla and Gus to life.

The book is a peon of praise to the creative imagination, to music and to the stickability needed to master an instrument. For Magerl, the inspiration for the book was personal:

“Watching my daughter learn a musical instrument was the inspiration for Piano Fingers. Despite my permanently calloused eardrums, our daughter became a better player and we became better listeners to music. This book is about a musical journey, but it’s also a love letter to all kinds of wishful thinking.”

The book is published by Walker Books in April of this year and you should be able to order a copy from your local independent bookshop.

Terry Potter

March 2022