The Healing Power of Music

Morpugro, Michael (2008). The Mozart Question. Grades 4-6.

Paolo Levi is a world-renowned violinist with a secret that no one has attempted or dared to uncover. When Lesley, a journalist, is scheduled to interview Levi, she is told not to ask the "Mozart question." What is the "Mozart question" she wonders? Lesley's interview question prompts Levi to recall how as a boy he developed his passion for the violin after his mother showed him a hidden violin belonging to his father. He would secretly borrow the violin and sneak out for lessons with a man who had once known Levi's parents and the secret they kept hidden all these years from their son. Beautiful watercolor illustrations are interspersed throughout the book.

This is a deeply moving story about the healing power of music. Although the terrible accounts of the Holocaust are not described in this story, the author alludes to some of the events and provides brief recollections of life at the camps.

Readers who are not familiar with the Holocaust may be interested in reading several sources:

Bachrach, Susan D. Tell Them We Remember: The Story of the Holocaust.

Krinitz, Esther Nisenthal. Memories of Survival.

Rubin, Susan Goldman. The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin.