Welcome to another edition of Back Matter Break Down! Today’s post features a book with unique and fascinating back matter that I have remembered and thought about often in the years since I first read it. Let’s dive in!
Book: JIMI: SOUNDS LIKE A RAINBOW
Author: Gary Golio
Illustrator: Javaka Steptoe
Publisher / Year: Clarion Books, 2010
Genre: Non Fiction
Topics: Biography, Music, Musicians
Blurb: “Jimi Hendrix was many things: a superstar, a rebel, a hero, an innovator. But first, he was a boy named Jimmy who loved to draw and paint and listen to records. A boy who played air guitar with a broomstick and longed for a real guitar of his own. A boy who asked himself a question: Could someone paint pictures with sound?
This a story of a talented child who learns to see, hear, and interpret the world around him in his own unique way. It is also a story of a determined kid with a vision, who worked hard to become a devoted and masterful artist. Jimi Hendrix–a groundbreaking performer whose music shook the very foundations of rock ‘n’ roll.”
Book Word Count: 1740
Back Matter Word Count: 1150 words plus references
Back Matter Sections:
1. “More About Jimi Hendrix” – 2-page spread biography written by the author (about 550 words)
In this section, we read a more comprehensive biography of Jimi Hendrix with Gary Golio skipping over the childhood years that are the focus of the book’s narrative. We get a few paragraphs that take us through music career and achievements before switching to an examination of his cultural context. Golio references contemporary figures (like Bob Dylan and Martin Luther King Jr.) and events (the Civil Rights Movement) that were significant to Hendrix’s music and point of view. Finally, this section ends with a paragraph that states Hendrix’s year of death and lets us know his lasting influence and legacy in music history. Overall, this section aims to give readers to get a more complete story about Jimi Hendrix life beyond what they read in the main text.
2. “Author’s Note” – a statement by the author (about 250 words)
The back matter moves on to a second spread for Gary Golio’s author’s note. Here, instead of focusing on Jimi Hendrix’s life, we read about his infamous death. Golio acknowledges the role that drugs and alcohol played in ending Hendrix’s life and explains that many musicians in that era were also experimenting with substances. Golio shares that his experience as a clinical social worker has given him many opportunities to observe the negative causes and effects of substance abuse and addiction on people’s lives. He writes, “In the spirit of recognizing that addiction is a treatable disease, and that deaths like Jimi’s can be prevented, here are some resources for better understanding and addressing the dangers of substance abuse.”
What follows is a heading (WEBSITES) with a list of three websites each geared at different aged readers (three to six, ten to eleven, and young teens). Golio gives a brief 1-2 sentence description of the websites followed by their URL links.
After the websites, there is another heading (BOOKS) with three book sources listed in MLA format. There appears to be one book aimed at adults on effective communication with kids, and two books aimed at kids/youth on dealing with their problems and understanding substance abuse.
3. “Illustrator’s Note: Exploring the Inspiration Behind the Music” – a statement by the artist (about 350 words)
As hinted at in the title, illustrator Javaka Steptoe shares the ways he immersed himself in the life of Jimi Hendrix while working on this book. Steptoe reveals that he not only listened to Hedrix’s music, but also travelled to his childhood school and home. Steptoe states he purchased wood in Seattle, Hendrix’s hometown, which he used for the book’s artwork. He also found inspiration in trying to see the world through Jimi Hendrix’s eyes, keeping in mind the rainbow of colors and sounds that author Golio brings to life in his text. Steptoe celebrates the individual creativity that Jimi Hendrix embodied, as well as the potential creativity uniquely found in each of us.
4. “Sources and Resources” – This final page of the book for the reference section is further divided into three type of sources:
Books – There are seven books listed using the MLA Works Cited formatting. Of the seven books, most are biographies about Jimi Hendrix, except for one collection of Jimi Hendrix’s own writings, and a book by Hendrix’s father about his son.
Selected Discography: CDs, Videos and DVDs – The author lists a mix of albums by Jimi Hendrix and his bands, as well as a few recorded live performances on DVD.
Websites – There are two websites listed: Jimi Hendrix’s official website, and the website for a music museum in Seattle.
Takeaways: Author Gary Golio’s text of Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow stays firmly focused on Jimi Hendrix’s youth and his introduction to playing and performing music. With that in mind, Golio uses the back matter to fill in the blanks in give readers more information about his subject’s adult life, career and musical legacy. In doing so, he is forced to deal with the messy reality of Jimi Hendrix’s life, specifically the drug use which led to his untimely death. Rather than gloss over that fact, Golio takes time to discuss the issue head on. He relies on his professional expertise to explain substance abuse in a way young readers can understand while not judging or stigmatizing Hendrix or others who may be struggling with this disease. With the additional resources he provides for further study, Golio finds a way to tell readers about all the interesting and colorful aspects of Jimi Hendrix’s life, including the shades of gray that are often sidestepped in books for children.
Tips: Picture book biographies often focus on a specific era of the subject’s life, so use your back matter space to cover the years that don’t fit into your main narrative. If your subject’s life story touches on difficult topics, your back matter could be the place to dive into that complexity. Help your readers to appreciate that every hero has flaws and failures, but that doesn’t mean their stories aren’t worth sharing.
Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment to add to the conversation or suggest a book for a future blog post!
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Judy Campbell-Smith 