Duet by Elise Broach || A Bird’s Eye View of Chopin

Duet

A musically gifted bird, a piano-playing boy, and a real-life mystery involving three artistic geniuses

Welcome to the world of Mirabelle, a young goldfinch who loves to sing and dreams of becoming a musical star. She lives with her family in the backyard of a piano teacher, and she is quickly intrigued by Mr. Starek's newest pupil. Michael Jin is an eleven-year-old keyboard sensation, but lesson after lesson, he refuses to play. With the prestigious Chopin Festival looming at summer’s end, how will he be ready in time? Mirabelle is responsible for Michael’s breakthrough—to her own astonishment, she sings the Chopin piece he is beginning to play at the piano. It is their first duet.

Thus begins a secret adventure that will take Mirabelle and Michael further than they ever imagined—in music, in friendship, and in solving the mystery of a lost piano that could be worth millions. A house full of treasures holds the clues. There, Mirabelle, Michael, and their friend Emily will make an important discovery that links the great composer Frederic Chopin, the trailblazing author George Sand, and the French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix.
A fast-paced, history-rich mystery will have young readers hooked as they root for boy and bird in this beautifully told novel, full of emotion and suspense.

Content Tags:

Perfect for readers who want:

• Heartwarming contemporary about following your passion
• Middle grade book about music and music history
• Animal point of view
• Very engaging narration style
• Low-key music-themed mystery

Many thanks to Christy Ottaviano Books and TBR and Beyond Tours for an eARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I’ll admit, this doesn’t seem like the style of book I would pick up, let alone enjoy, right? There’s no stabbing or sarcasm (well, maybe a teensy bit, but hardly any) and certainly no dragons or necromancy. Which is . . . weird. Do books like that even exist?! Apparently. Ever since I read and loved Pighearted by Alex Perry, though, I’ve decided to try to rediscover the “heartwarming contemporary” middle grade genre. And I have to say, I haven’t been disappointed.

Duet is a heartwarming middle grade story from the point of view of a bird. It’s part love letter to music, part mystery, and part coming of age—for the boy and the bird!

I’m not a very musical person, so I was a little worried about the fact that this book was entirely about music, but . . . I sort of loved that aspect of it? So weird, because I didn’t think that’d be the case. I learned so much about music, and it was very interesting. The big focus of this book is Chopin, who of course I knew about in passing, but I didn’t know there were so many juicy details about his life. I’m also not sold on animal points of view in middle grade, but I definitely want more books like this, told from the point of view of cheeky little birds!

You don’t need to know or understand music at all to enjoy the musical theme of this book . . . but if you do, you’ll probably love it even more!

As I said, I don’t know a whole lot about music other than it exists and I’m really bad at it. So I’m always leery about picking up books that have a heavy music theme, because I always worry it’ll be hard for me to get into the book. So not the case here! I really enjoyed the musical aspects of this book and thought they were really interesting. I learned some new things, too, and didn’t feel like it was a dissertation on music.

This story is one-third about a little boy named Michael who is discovering his love for Chopin, one-third about an old man whose sister’s death is rekindling reminders of how much he misses her, and 100% told from the perspective of a music-loving goldfinch named Mirabelle.

Now, if you’re thinking that a story from the point of view of a bird is going to be dry and boring, think again! First, I absolutely loved that Mirabelle is a goldfinch, purely from a selfish perspective, because my grandparents always had goldfinches at their feeders outside their kitchen windows and oh the nostalgia! Second, Mirabelle is a very cheeky goldfinch with troubles of her own, as her mother is about to have new babies (which she’s convinced will replace her and her brothers) and she’s discovering her own love for music along with Michael.

I’m generally not one for animal point of view books, for whatever reason, but I really enjoyed the way Broach did this. Plus, I learned quite a bit about goldfinches, too!

This book heavily focuses on Chopin, so if you’re not familiar with him as an artist in general (like me), prepare to learn some fun new facts.

I actually loved this aspect of the book. At the end of the book, Broach talks about the true facts included in the book, and I was so surprised to find that so much of it was accurate! I knew of Chopin, of course, but I never really considered him a person of interest to me personally. After reading this book, though, I’m very curious about Chopin! I think I’ll probably read more about him now, because I hadn’t realized his life was so interesting. I also am aware of, like, three Chopin pieces, but apparently he wrote dozens of pieces, which I hadn’t realized. While I was reading the book, I listened to the pieces Michael was playing, and I feel like I’ve discovered a side of music I was unaware of.

Duet has layers within layers, and while this is a book about music and a goldfinch and a little boy learning the piano, it’s also an ode to the love between siblings, even estranged siblings, and how sometimes it’s too late to say the important things.

Even though it’s a secondary storyline, this is the one that broke my heart the most! Mr. Starek, who is Michael’s music teacher and the old man whose house Mirabelle has her nest out of, recently lost his sister. They had been estranged for years, even though it’s clear that Mr. Starek loved her. While the book doesn’t delve into this too much, it’s such a poignant storyline that really hit me hard in the feels. Especially since part of the distance between Mr. Starek and his sister stemmed from the fact that she was a hoarder and he felt helpless to do anything to help her.

This book is just full of really poignant, hard-hitting quotes that I absolutely loved. Choosing which ones to share was hard, because the writing was *chef’s kiss*

It’s a really hard thing to pull off, but Broach manages it. The book is simple on the surface and very easy to follow with a plot that’s engaging but doesn’t seem too deep or complicated. The writing itself is also deceptively simple. Yet, there were quite a few lines or passages that I had to read twice because they stopped me in my tracks with they cut right to the heart of things. It’s a very quotable book.

About Elise Broach

Elise Broach is the author of more than twenty books for young readers, including board books, picture books, early readers, middle-grade mysteries, and young adult novels. Her picture book, My Pet Wants a Pet, was named Parents Magazine’s Best Picture Book of 2018. Another picture book, When Dinosaurs Came with Everything, won the E. B. White Read-Aloud Award and was Time Magazine’s #1 Children’s Book of the Year. Her middle-grade novel, Masterpiece, was a New York Times bestseller and also won the E. B. White Read-Aloud Award. Elise’s books have appeared on more than a dozen state reading lists. She lives in Connecticut and teaches creative writing at Yale University.

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