The Mozart Season
Henry Holt, 1991
ISBN 978-0805015713 (hardcover)
Square Fish, 2007
ISBN 978-0312367459 (paperback)
“Remember, what’s down inside you, all covered up—the things of your soul. The important, secret things … The story of you, all buried, let the music caress it out into the open.”
When Allegra was a little girl, she thought she would pick up her violin and it would sing for her—that the music was hidden inside her instrument.
Now that Allegra is twelve, she believes the music is in her fingers, and the summer after seventh grade she has to teach them well. She’s the youngest contestant in the Ernest Bloch Young Musicians’ Competition. She knows she will learn the notes to the concerto, but what she doesn’t realize is she’ll also learn how to close the gap between herself and Mozart to find the real music inside her heart.
Resources
- “The Mozart Season,” Melanie Heuiser Hill, Fresh Lookology, Bookology, undated
Awards and Honors
- ALA Best Book for Young Adults
- ALA Notable Book for Children
- Booklist (focus review)
- Hungry Mind Review Book of Distinction
- Junior Library Guild
- Kirkus Reviews (pointer review)
- Parents’ Choice Award
- Phoenix Award from the Children’s Literature Association, 2011
- Janusz Korczak Award Honor, 1992 (Anti-Defamation League Braun Center for Holocaust Studies, the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, with the Janusz Korczak Society of America and the Kosciuszko Foundation)
Reviews
“With the same thoughtful attention to original characterization that we saw in Probably Still Nick Swansen (1988), Wolff now offers a book for a slightly younger audience. Allegra, 12, describes the summer she spends preparing for a prestigious young musicians’ competition in her home state of Oregon. A luminously realized character, Allegra is gifted not only musically but in her sensitive, intelligent responses to events—an authentic range of joy, anger, and terror that are both characteristic of her age and unique to her. Her season of discovery—of Mozart, her own roots, and the creative balance between life’s traumas and trivia—marks a fine achievement. (Kirkus Reviews, pointer)
“Virginia Euwer Wolff’s novel, The Mozart Season, which gathers strength as it progresses, offers intriguing glimpses into the life and work of professional musicians (the author is a violinist herself) while unpretentiously exploring age-old philosophical questions. The ending is quite satisfying. There are no pat answers, but Allegra is a much more mature person at the end of the Mozart season than she was at the beginning.” (Entertainment Weekly)
“The story has the suspense and conflict and terror of all good performance stories. It has the fuel of a survival adventure. Not only musicians, but any kid who’s really into science, sports, theater, writing, art, chess, will recognize the concentration, the drudgery, the dailiness, and the imaginative leap into the unknown.” (Booklist, focus review)
“How a 12-year-old girl spends the summer months mastering a piece of music written by a 19-year-old boy centuries before is the basis of a sturdy, engrossing novel.” (New York Times Book Review)
“Allegra, a gifted violinist, plays in a youth orchestra in her hometown of Portland, Oregon, but she is also a three-dimensional, real 12-year-old who wrangles good-naturedly with her older brother, chafes at her parents’ restrictions on late-night bike riding, is loyal to her friends, and is intensely curious about the world around her. As the summer progresses, several themes weave in and out of Allegra’s consciousness and growth as she struggles with the Mozart concerto she will play in the competition. A strange dancing man who appears at outdoor concerts, the mysterious sadness surrounding her mother’s friend Deirdre, and a very special gift from her grandmother in New York—all these find their way into Allegra’s awareness and eventually into her own interpretation of the concerto. With a clear, fresh voice that never falters, Wolff gives readers a delightful heroine, a fully realized setting, and a slowly building tension that reaches a stunning climax at the competition. Wolff interweaves the themes of adolescence, music, and striving for excellence with great success.” (School Library Journal)
“Having just completed seventh grade, Allegra Shapiro is looking forward to a relaxing summer … But when she is chosen as the youngest of six finalist in one of Oregon’s most prestigious music competitions, her days are filled with practicing … Her multitextured first-person story will speak strongly to many young people … Readers … will savor each word of this distinctive novel.” (The Horn Book)
“It is a pleasure to have a novel of ideas for young adults that describes the delicate dance between honoring traditions of the past and being your own person in the present.” (Publisher’s Weekly)
Henry Holt, 1991
ISBN 978-0805015713 (hardcover)
Square Fish, 2007
ISBN 978-0312367459 (paperback)