"There are no shortcuts to surviving your first day at a new school--you can't fix it with duct tape like you would your Chuck Taylors. On Day One, twelve-year-old Malú (María Luisa, if you want to annoy her) inadvertently upsets Posada Middle School's queen bee, violates the school's dress code with her punk rock look, and disappoints her college-professor mom in the process. Her dad, who now lives a thousand miles away, says things will get better...

Clayton feels most alive when he's with his grandfather, Cool Papa Byrd, and the band of Bluesmen -- he can't wait to join them, just as soon as he has a blues song of his own. But then the unthinkable happens. Cool Papa Byrd dies, and Clayton's mother forbids Clayton from playing the blues. And Clayton knows that's no way to live. Armed with his grandfather's brown porkpie hat and his harmonica, he runs away from home in search of the Bluesmen, hoping...

Every morning Bear wakes up with a song in his head, but one day he realizes the song needs something more and sets out to find what is missing, gathering a band of animal musicians along the way.

A.J. and his friends are forming a band! At least, they are taking band classes. Their new teacher, Mrs. Bacon, can teach any instrument, from the kazoo to the tuba. But can she get A.J.'s class to play well enough during their recital to impress crabby Dr. Carbles? Or will their concert turn into a musical mess?

When Little Pig tries to join his Grandpa, brothers, and sisters in a marching band he discovers that, although he is too small for any of the available instruments, he can still play an important role.

When the weather warms up, bats take advantage of an empty theater to stage a concert.

Lost in the Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and finds himself entwined in a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica--and decades later three children, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California find themselves caught up in the same thread of destiny in the darkest days of the twentieth century, struggling to keep their families intact, and tied together by the music of the same harmonica.

Sixth-grader Emmy tries to find her place in a new school and to figure out how she can create her own kind of music using a computer.

"Words burn bright in this joyful celebration of rap, creativity, and self-expression. "Welcome to the cypher! Now huddle up nice and snug. You feel that circle around you? Well, that's a hip hop hug!" Starting with beatboxes and fingersnaps, an exuberant narrator introduces kids in his community to the powerful possibilities of rap, from turning "a simple phrase/into imagery that soars" to proclaiming, "this is a voice that represents me!" As Khodi...

"As a young girl leads a cast of characters on a musical journey, they learn that they have the power to make changes--big or small--in the world, in their communities, and in most importantly, in themselves"--