How It Happened

Because by Mo Willems ill Amber Ren

“ If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person"
​Mister Rogers

Because is a word laden with possibility. Mo Willems explores a chain of cause and effect in his latest picture book Because. 

Willems begins with Beethoven and traces the events that lead from his composition to a performance by an orchestra. He includes moments on this continuum that are deliberately planned: musicians who learn to play an instrument and practice until they become proficient. Then there are unexpected occurrences: due to illness there is an extra ticket available.

The result of this string of events is that the life of one girl is changed. She becomes a composer and conducts an orchestral performance of her composition.  

And that night, someone heard her music and was changed.

Ren's illustrations are filled with many charming touches. The portrait of Beethoven hanging on the wall shows him glancing into the future at young Franz Schubert.  A violinist practices in his home and on the side table is a photo of himself as a young boy with his first violin.   A continuous golden musical ribbon weaves throughout the book, tying all the elements together. End papers featuring the score of Schubert's Symphony no. 8 in B-minor and Hilary Purrington's contemporary composition The Cold appropriately bookend the story.                

This is how it happened:

I sitting with a teen and together we read this book. We considered how because happens in her life. Because she wanted to play a music instrument that was different from the instruments other members of her family play, she decided to try strings. Because she liked the sound and the shape, she decided to try the cello.
Because she played the cello with the orchestra in her school, she met another student studying the cello. Because they performed together, the two became best friends.

​Uncorrected copy provided by publisher.

Pub date: March 5, 2019  Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children ISBN: 978-1368019019