Happy Thursday and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for DUET! I’m so excited because today I have an interview with Elise Broach to share with you! This book is truly amazing and I’m so excited to for you to find out more about it!
Duet by Elise Broach Published on May 10, 2022 by Christy Ottaviano Books
Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Mystery
Pages: 304
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Goodreads
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.
What would you do if you spent the day with Mirabelle and Michael? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?
Oh, I would have to hear one of their duets, of course! I’m sure Mirabelle would insist on that. And then it would be fun to have a picnic with Michael and Mirabelle in Mr. Starek’s backyard, so I could meet the rest of the goldfinch family. Maybe I would bring a bowl of fresh berries, and sesame bagels so the birds could snack on the seeds.
If Mirabelle and Michael were to hang out with other fictional characters, who would they be and why?
I think Mirabelle and Michael would quickly befriend the characters in The Cricket in Times Square, especially the cricket, Chester. Like them, Chester loves music, and he could contribute his own talent to a new musical trio. Mirabelle would be worried about Harry the cat, but Tucker could probably reassure her, and Michael and Mario would become fast friends.
If there was one fictional place you could travel to for a day, where would it be and why?
The barn full of animals in Charlotte’s Web. That book has a special place in my heart from my childhood. I love animals and farms, and it would be wonderful to sit in the barn and smell the warm hay and hear the animals’ opinions on all sorts of topics. . . especially the wisdom of Charlotte.
If you buried a time capsule with three items inside, what three items would you choose and why?
My three items would be:
1) A photo album of my family, because that’s the best way to capture so many memories of us at different times.
2) My desktop calendar because I write EVERYTHING in it and it’s such a window onto day-to-day life, with outings and meetings, to-do lists and trips.
3) An ancient copy of Daphne du Maurier’s Frenchman’s Creek, a historical romance-adventure that my grandmother gave me when I was a teenager, because it’s survived 80 years and several generations already, and my grandmother wrote a sweet inscription to me on the first page.
What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?
I did so much research on goldfinches, and one thing I discovered is that a bird called the brown-headed cowbird often lays its eggs in goldfinch nests. The cowbird is called a “nest parasite” because it lays an egg in the goldfinch nest while the female goldfinch is away and then flies off, leaving the baby cowbird to be hatched and fed by the goldfinch mother.
What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from Duet?
I loved writing the scene of the first duet, when Mirabelle starts to sing the Chopin piece that Michael is playing at the piano. She feels magically transformed by the music and thinks
“Am I still made of bones and skin and feathers? No. I am only song.”
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.
What do you think about Duet? Have you added it to your tbr yet? Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous day!
