Victor the Violinist

On Christmas Day, 1919, a boy was born to a family with almost nothing. One person saw what he could become.Victor's mother sang and played the piano. His father left for the iron factory before the sun came up. There was love in that house, and music in it, and not much else. Then his Aunt Julie came home from overseas. She saw something nobody else had noticed yet.She gave him a violin. His first attempt was a screech. He put it down. He said no. Then he picked it up again. And years later a package arrived, with a sealed envelope taped to its side. On it, in his aunt's handwriting, four words: When Victor turns 21.WHO THIS BOOK IS FORThe grandparent who wants a gift still on a shelf in ten years, not in a cupboard by February.The parent of a child three weeks into music lessons.The aunt, uncle or godparent looking for a gift that gets remembered.The Sunday school teacher or church librarian who needs a read-aloud.The music teacher with a pupil who has stopped practising.And the child just handed something they do not yet know how to use.FIVE BOOKS IN ONEA Christmas book. It opens on Christmas Day and Christmas runs through it.A music book. For any child learning violin or piano, resisting practice this week.A gift book about a gift. What that violin became is the whole story.Quietly Christian. A family who pray and keep going. Nothing preached.Gently historical. An immigrant household in 1919, a concert hall in 1944.WHAT YOU ARE GETTINGSixty pages with original full-colour illustration throughout.Written entirely in rhyme, built to be read aloud.Ages 4 to 10. Read to a five-year-old, read by an eight-year-old.One sitting. Long enough to matter, short enough to finish.A story that ends with a letter, and a question the reader answers.Most picture books are read once and shelved. This one comes back, at Christmas, then again when a child first picks up an instrument, and once more years later when they understand what Aunt Julie actually did. Children hear the story. Adults hear something else in it. A violin. An aunt who believed. And a letter that waited twenty-one years to be opened.