THE VIOLIN PLAYERS
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Savvy New Yorker, 15 year old Melissa Jensen, suddenly finds herself a “stranger in a strange new land,” when her father accepts a temporary (seven months to be exact) teaching assignment in a small college town in the Midwest, tearing her away from her friends in Manhattan.
How inconvenient! She was suppose to be the lead in her school play, captain of the debate team and first violinist in the school orchestra. Instead, she must forfeit her Junior year glory and venture out to an obscure town in “the middle of nowhere.”
Her father’s offer of letting her live in New York with her grandparents is equally unappealing. No way will she follow their strict Orthodox Jewish rules.
Incredibly, her new school is filled with surprises! First, there’s her new drama teacher, a former Broadway actor. And who would have guessed that her new orchestra would be every bit as good or maybe even better than hers in New York. And what about that remarkable boy, named Daniel Goodman (the one with those dreamy eyes), who shares Melissa’s passion for playing the violin? Meanwhile, the coolest kids at school treat her like a celebrity for simply having grown up in the “Big Apple.”
Everything seems too good to be true, until Melissa comes across something she never experienced- antisemitism. Sure, she knows it exists everywhere…including New York City. But never in her neighborhood! No one in Henryville suspects that she is Jewish, but when Daniel, the only known Jewish student in school, is bullied by a bigoted star of the football team, Melissa must make a choice. Her decision should be clear-cut, but life is never that simple. THE VIOLIN PLAYERS examines the price paid when prejudice goes unchecked.
Customer Reviews
Layers, ripples and the importance of abolishing the "bystander".
Congratulations to the author on this nuanced approach to subtle and not so subtle bullying, bigotry and racism in our schools and therefore our wider communities. Against a backdrop of schoolday romantic notions, following a moving situation familiar to a lot of families, the author slowly builds her narrative, starting with a so called subtle comment that is written off by the bystanders as "that is just who he is". And furthermore, we are led to believe that he became just who he is through some questionable parenting techniques suggesting that while bullying, bigotry and racism need to be addressed in our schools, the true source of this condescending hate speech is more likely earlier in life and outside of the school walls. Current efforts on the parts of our schools to address the situation are both necessary and welcome but will require a strong community participation to achieve the desired effect. The role of the "bystander" or the excuser needs to be abolished in both adults and children - we need to empower our children to live in a "see something, say something" world - that will send bullies scuttling for a dark corner until they can see the light. And setting such an important story against the setting of exquisite violin music was a stroke of genius.