By Troy Andrews
The true story of a New Orleans boy so small he had to drag his trombone behind him, who grew up to lead his own band.
Troy Andrews grew up in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, where music pours out of every doorway and a brass band can turn a whole street into a party. He was so little, and his trombone so big, that the horn was twice as tall as he was and he had to haul it around behind him, which is how he got the name Trombone Shorty. He made instruments out of whatever he could find, followed the bands through the streets, and one day the great Bo Diddley pulled him up on stage. By the end he's leading his own band. It's told in Troy's own voice, and Bryan Collier's collage paintings, full of swirling music and warm New Orleans color, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Award.
If your child's music-mad, this is proof the dream is real, a child who loved sound so much he made his own instruments and grew into a musician who plays around the world. It carries the whole feel of New Orleans music on the page, so a child who loves to bang and blow and drum gets to see a place where that's the highest calling. And it's a Black boy at the center of his own success story, told in his own words, which lets a lot of children picture themselves on that stage.