Guitars are everywhere. If you don’t play one, then chances are you’ve at least heard a one – on the radio, on the street corner, in a park on a summer afternoon, at your cousin’s wedding, on open mic night at your favorite coffee shop. If you hear music somewhere, it’s a good bet there’s a guitar in it.
One of the great things about the guitar is that it enables you to be your own one-person band. Like to sing but don’t have the dough for a piano on which to accompany yourself and couldn’t play one if you did? No problem. With as little as $50 and a few chords, you’ll be all set to sing and strum.
And can you imagine a rock band without a guitarist? Impossible. And there’s a reason why – guitars are inherently social instruments. Sure, it’s fine to sing and accompany yourself on the guitar. But it’s more than fine – it’s cool – to play the guitar with a whole group of your people keeping rhythm and singing along. And since the guitar is imminently portable, you can take it to the after-party, too.
It’s never too late – or too early – to learn how to pay the guitar. In celebration of National Guitar Day (Feb. 11), here’s a list of children’s picture books about some guitarists and guitar makers who have helped shape the course of history.
Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life of Elizabeth Cottenwritten by Laura Veirs, illustrated by Tatyana Fazlalizadhe
(Chronicle Books, 2018)
The remarkable life story of Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten (1893-1987). The granddaughter of enslaved people who had been freed, the North Carolina-born Cotten was steeped in the music of the cotton fields and her family’s church. While a child, the left-handed Cotten taught herself to play her brother’s guitar, holding the instrument upside down and backwards, and developing a unique way of playing the instrument that had an enduring influence on later American music.
Here’s Libba Cotten demonstrating what she called her “Cotten picking” technique, in a performance of “Freight Train:”
Libba chronicles Cotten’s tender early years, her fateful rediscovery a quarter-century later by composer Ruth Crawford Seeger and her late-life launch into musical stardom. The book is a celebration of individuality and an important reminder that there’s no age limit to talent.
Guitar Genius: How Les Paul Engineered the Solid-Body Electric Guitar and Rocked the World
written by Kim Tomsic, illustrated by Brett Helquist
(Chronicle Books, 2019)
The solid-body electric guitar has for so long been a staple of popular music that it’s easy to imagine the instrument always existed. Chronicling Les Paul’s (born Lester Polsfuss, 1915-2009) path to inventing the first solid-body electric guitar, Guitar Genius gives readers a glimpse into a young mind taking flight, following insatiable curiosity and inventing its way around obstacles, eventually changing the face of music forever. Paul’s journey to musical legend unfolded during the 1930s and ‘40s in countless bold, creative moves, from building his own radio with an oatmeal can and copper wire, to using random gadgets to invent a machine to record his musical performances, to eventually creating “the Log” – the prototype for what would become the Gibson Les Paul solid-body guitar. His inventions helped make all kinds of popular music possible and earned Paul spots in the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. And it all began when young Lester chose to believe he could do anything he put his mind to.
For more inspiration, watch a seasoned Les Paul shred in this 1970s performance:
Gizmos, Gadgets, and Guitars: The Story of Leo Fender
written by Michael Mahin, illustrated by Steven Salerno
(Henry Holt and Company, 2021)
Leo Fender had grown up a tinkerer. And while he got good enough at fixing broken radios, no one could have predicted that he would end up inventing a new type of guitar and founding a thriving guitar making company. Gizmos, Gadgets, and Guitars tells the story of the man behind some of the most famous instruments in popular music history. Blind in one eye and finding himself jobless during the Great Depression, Fender started a business repairing radios, typewriters, toasters and musical instruments. He refined the mechanics of the lap steel guitar and eventually founded the Fender Electric Musical Instrument Company. Inspired by the solid-body electric guitars of his friend and fellow guitar inventor Les Paul, the solid-body guitar Fender invented helped him put his company on sure financial footing – in 1950, the Fender Esquire became one of the first solid-body electric guitars to be mass produced and made commercially available. From the Esquire, to the Telecaster, to the Stratocaster, Fender guitars have been played by stars like Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards and Kurt Cobain and are still manufactured today. Gizmos, Gadgets, and Guitars is an interesting account of a monumental development in music history. The book’s ultimate message, that creating something new is “more about failure than success,” is an important lesson for readers to learn young.
Rock, Rosetta, Rock! Roll, Rosetta, Roll!: Presenting Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Godmother of Rock & Roll
written by Tonya Bolden, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
(Harper, 2023)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a rock star long before there were rock stars. With the help of Col. Tom Parker and Sun Records, among others, Elvis Presley may have been the musician that made rock ‘n’ roll an international cultural force to be reckoned with, but Elvis had his predecessors – Rosetta Tharpe among them. Rock, Rosetta, Rock! Roll, Rosetta, Roll! outlines Tharpe’s early life in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, and her rise to musical prominence singing and stumming gospel- and rhythm & blues-inspired tunes on radio broadcasts and in the records she cut for Decca in the late 1930s – nearly two decades before Elvis’ fateful 1956 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show made him and rock ‘n’ roll household names. Author Tonya Bolden’s musical prose and illustrator R. Gregory Christie’s illustrations of bold line and vibrant color call well-deserved attention to the Godmother of Rock & Roll’s enduring musical contributions.
The amazing Sister Rosetta Tharpe in a 1964 performance of her hit gospel song “This Train.”
Little Rosetta and the Talking Guitar: The Musical Story of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Woman Who Invented Rock and Roll
written and illustrated by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow
(Doubleday, 2023)
Author/illustrator Charnelle Pinkney Barlow writes in her Author’s Note to Little Rosetta and the Talking Guitar that “Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a musician whose sound changed music history.” The book tells the story of Tharpe’s upbringing in a musical family in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, and her rise to stardom in the 1930s as one of the world’s first stars of rock ‘n’ roll. That Tharpe, female and Black, was innovating and succeeding in a world very much divided on lines of race and sex makes her story all the more inspiring. From her first musical performance at her family’s church, to the stages and air waves of the world, Tharpe found her unique musical voice in community and, in sharing it widely, influenced countless musicians after her – including Elvis Presley. She shaped the course of music, without leaving behind the roots that informed her style. As Barlow writes, “Her guitar spoke of the wisdom passed down through generations. The joy and trials of those who came before her.”
Talkin’ Guitar: A Story of Young Doc Watson
written and illustrated by Robbin Gourley
(Clarion Books, 2015)
“Arthel had a heart full of music and a head full of song,” writes author Robbin Gourley. Arthel Lane Watson was also blind, but what he couldn’t see, he could hear. And there was music in everything he heard – the music of the work he did – sawing logs, milking cows – during his growing-up years on his family’s North Carolina farm, the music of chickens and tree frogs, the music of the rain and the wind. And to young Arthel, just about everything was a musical instrument waiting to happen. Talkin’ Guitar tells the story of Arthel’s transformation from a musically precocious youngster to “Doc” Watson, the legendary Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award-winning bluegrass, folk and country guitarist and singer. The book’s message – that limitations are only as large of you make them – is an important one for readers of all ages and abilities.
For even more great children’s books about music, check out these previous stories:
10 Great Recent Children’s Books about Music
10 Great Children’s Books about Classical Music
15 Great Children’s Books about African American Musicians and Dancers
10 More Great Children’s Books about Classical Music
Harpsichords Travel Through Time and Around the World in New Picture Book
