Tell Me About Beethoven

A New Children's Book About Beethoven
By Michael And Thelma Gruenbaum

A year or so ago I was rummaging through a very old box of papers and I came across a half a dozen children’s stories Thelma and I wrote for our own children some fifty years ago. In those days there was no such thing as emails, so we took this story which we wrote during the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth and mailed it to half a dozen prominent publishers – with the usual results: no response or just simply a rejection. So this time I sent it out to some 230 literary agents and publishers and got some responses, but mainly from a British-based publisher with offices in the USA who found the story very charming. As part of the contract, they said they would provide 12 illustrations. I thought they would go out and take a photo of Beethoven’s bust and possibly a score, but they made illustrations to fit the text and all in all, we thought their team of illustrators did a most wonderful job.

Please visit this link to learn more about the book and how to order a copy. And this recent Boston Globe article describes how this book came to be. There are also audio clips from my recent WBZ radio interview here and here.

Thanks,

Michael Gruenbaum