Music Book Review: Where Are All The Black Female Composers

Given that it is 2024’s International Women’s Day on 8 March, as well as World Book Day on 7 March, I thought it only right to feature a book for children all about inspirational women for my Music Book Review. So this month I have chosen to read and review Where Are All The Black Female Composers by Nathan Holder and illustrated by Charity Russell.

Who wrote a song with an astronaut?

Who was called the ‘Dean of Black Women Composers’?

Which composer taught Chaka Khan?

From Florence Price to Shirley Thompson, Cassie Kinoshi to Nkeira Okoye, and Regina Baiocchi to Tania León, learn and be inspired by the lives and music of some amazing Black female composers.

Where Are All The Black Female Composers? Introduces you to many Black female classical composers throughout history. You’ll discover women who have faced adversity, composed incredible music, and inspired people across the world. Filled with fun facts, quizzes and music – after you read it, you’ll never have to ask ‘where are all the Black female composers’ again!

Blurb from the back of the book Where Are All The Black Female Composers? By Nathan Holder

This is the third, I think, book about music that I have read and reviewed from author Nathan Holder. As well as being an author, he is a teacher, expert in music education, speaker about the effects of colonialism on music and music education and the host of the Why podcast- a series of talks aimed at, I would say, tweens or teenagers talking about various figures from music history, about their lives and their music. Nathan Holder has a really nice, casual, conversational style and talks to the children like real people. He does not talk down to them, while still explaining concepts in ways they will relate to and understand. It’s a really good, informative series and although I am not his target audience I learned a lot about musicians I was familiar with and musicians I was not. Nathan brings this fantastic and appealing style to his written works, and this book is no exception.

The Why Squad are a group of children who love their music classes, and finding out as much as they can about music. We have seen them before on this blog when they were extremely helpful to the Jumo Orchestra when they lost their instruments in Music Book Review: Where Are All The Instruments and on an adventure across the African continent to discover more about African instruments and music in Music Book Review: Where Are All The Instruments?: West Africa and they pop up here in this book to discover more about Black female composers.

Where Are All The Black Female Composers is a non-fiction book introducing children to the lives and music of 21 Black female composers. This book is aimed at a slightly younger audience, so there is relatively little information given for each of the composers, maybe a paragraph or 2 at most. But this entirely appropriate for the age of his intended audience whose powers of concentration are not yet fully developed.

The concept of what, or rather who, is a composer is explained in the book. There is a playlist at the end of the book with a QR code that will take you straight to that playlist so you can listen to some of the music discussed in the previous pages. And if you want to learn more about some of the composers in this book, you have a list of books to look out for where you can learn more about them, should you wish to.

Dotted through the are quiz questions about Black female composers or the music they have written with the answers given at the end. The members of the Why Squad also pop up here and there to give you even more information, or pose those quiz questions.

What do I like about this book?

To prepare for this section, as well as the next couple of sections, of my review, I also asked my two children, a 9 and 6 year old what they liked and did not like about the book.

• Oftentimes when I am reviewing non-fiction books about music, especially books about classical composers, somewhere in the review I mention the fact that the book only features white male composers. It is so refreshing for a book talking about music history to be all about Black female composers. I mean, female composers generally do not get the interest and attention they deserve, and Black female composers get a fraction of the attention that their white female counterparts get.
• I think the level of detail about each composer’s life is just right for the intended reader given that young children’s attention spans are quite short.
• I like that this is part of a series of books. We meet the Why Squad in a number of Nathan Holder’s books. So if you have read any of the other books the cast of characters is immediately familiar and reassuring. The Why Squad are also children, older than the intended audience. I don’t know about your children, but mine love to get involved in what the big boys and girls are doing. This plays into that desire to be interested in the same things as the big boys and girls.
• Charity Russell’s illustrations. Illustrations are such an important part of a children’s book, and here she has not only brought the Why Squad to life, but also gives us drawing of what the composers featured in the book looks life, bring them more to life for our readers.
• My daughter loved the quiz questions. She liked the interactive element that brought to the book.
• Both of my children said that they liked the fact that the composers in the book were ones they hadn’t heard of before, and they liked learning about new (to them) people.

What don’t I like about this book?

• I suspect that there is a budgetary reason for this, but it is a shame that the illustrations are in black and white rather than in colour.
• While my daughter liked the quiz questions, she said that she would have liked to see the answers on the same page, perhaps in smaller writing and upside down, rather than going to a separate page towards the back of the book.
• Personally I would have liked the quiz questions to be questions that the children could find the answers to within the book. There were some quiz questions like this, but others where the answer to the question was a composer who wasn’t actually featured in the book other than in the quiz question.

Who is the book for?

Both my 6 and 9 year olds said they felt the book was for 7 -8 year olds. My 6 year old said that some of the words were quite difficult to read for herself.

I would mostly agree with them on this. I think once you get much beyond 10 the book doesn’t have enough detail in it about the different composers to keep the interest of the children beyond a quick flick through. And much below 7 or even maybe 8, then I think you have the opposite problem. And illustration and storytelling are more important for the younger readers. This is very much a non-fiction book. In many of the books I review for the youngest readers concepts about music are introduced via a story, and that is not the case with this book. In my household I have one child who go really likes non-fiction books, and one who is not as keen. So I would have the non-fiction fan in mind more than the other when considering whether or not to buy this book.

I note that Amazon puts their age recommendation for this book at 13-18 years. I’m not sure I agree with this. My 9 year old felt the book was a little too young for him, but he was only having a quick look at the book! I would be a bit skeptical of that recommendation, and for me I would suggest it is aimed at 7 or 8 year olds to 10 year olds.

Would I recommend this book?

Yes. Especially if your child likes non-fiction. Or if you want to try them out with some non-fiction and see how they get on with it. It’s quite a nice book to dip in and out of, and doesn’t need to be read in one sitting. And if nothing else, your child will learn something about some composers they probably won’t have heard about in school. You may be inspired to listen to some new music to see if you like it, and that is never a bad thing. I think the book is very well written for its 7-10 year old audience.

At the time of writing this book, which has only been out for a few weeks, was priced at £9.43 on Amazon. And of course, it will also be available from many other good book retailers. .

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