Shine, My Heart, My Violinist!

When it came to selecting an instrument to play, 8-year-old, Shine, chose the violin. In the book, the girl who once proficiently and beautifully played strings takes a 15-year hiatus to the dismay of her only living parent, her father Mel. "All it takes is practice," he urges. But she would rather sing than play the violin. This poem reminisces on her past performances and "dinner and accolades" and the sadness that emerges from the silence between father and daughter. In learning that her father has heart disease, she hopes that by playing violin for her father again, she can "massage failing hearts to stringendo." She looks to the Creator as the originator of music set to the "thousand trumpets" sounding in the stethoscope of God''s heart and comes to the realization that music, therefore "transcends race." Take the journey with Shine and her father back to "hallow wooden stills of curvaceous instruments held gingerly by 10-year-old hands." You won''t soon forget it.