The voice of Music narrates the tale of its most beloved disciple, young Frankie Presto, a war orphan raised by a blind music teacher in a small Spanish town. At nine years old, Frankie is sent to America in the bottom of a boat. His only possession is an old guitar and six precious strings. But Frankie's talent is touched by the gods, and his amazing journey weaves him through the musical landscape of the 20th century, from classical to jazz to rock...

"There are no shortcuts to surviving your first day at a new school--you can't fix it with duct tape like you would your Chuck Taylors. On Day One, twelve-year-old Malú (María Luisa, if you want to annoy her) inadvertently upsets Posada Middle School's queen bee, violates the school's dress code with her punk rock look, and disappoints her college-professor mom in the process. Her dad, who now lives a thousand miles away, says things will get better...

Mria's Synopsis: The California sunshine's not quite so bright for three sisters who get dumped in the same week... Finola, a popular LA morning-show host, is famously upbeat until she's blindsided on live TV by the news that her husband is sleeping with a young pop sensation who has set their affair to music. While avoiding the tabloids and pretending she's just fine, she's crumbling inside, desperate for him to come to his senses and for life to...

"Essays about 1990s popular culture, politics, sports, literature, music"-- At the beginning, everyone's name and address was listed in the phone book, and everyone answered their landline because you didn't know who it was. By the end, exposing someone's address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their cell phone if they didn't know who was calling. Klosterman shows that in the 1990s there was a wholesale shift in how society...

Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, first published in 1910, remained a perennial favorite throughout the twentieth century and into the early 2000s. It was adapted to several popular motion pictures and into one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. Its main character, Erik, is a romantic figure whose appeal reaches across different cultures and times. He is a sensitive soul, an accomplished composer and musician whose great...

Two things are true about white teen Kate--she's always in the ensemble, never the lead, and she and her best friend Andy, who is Black, have always shared unattainable crushes. Both of those things are about to change when Matt Olsson enters the scene. The two crushed on him at an out-of-state theater camp and said their goodbyes, only for him to turn up in their theater room on the first day of school. To make things more interesting, Kate has finally...

"Wade Westmore is used to being in the spotlight. So when he's passed over for the lead in the spring musical, it comes as a major blow--especially when the role goes to his ex-boyfriend, Reese...Shy sophomore Elijah Brady is used to being overlooked. Forget not knowing his name--most of his classmates don't even know he exists. So when he joins the stage crew for the musical, he seems destined to blend into the scenery. When the two have a disastrous...

"Bells that ring themselves. Record players that turn on an play music to empty rooms. Ghosts that can climb out of wardrobes...Maggie Holt doesn't believe in these things, even though they are the details of the story that made her family famous. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved to Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent twenty days there before fleeing in the dead of night, an...