Nancy Churnin, the theater critic for the Dallas Morning News, offers a fascinating and accessible picture book biography of the great songwriter, in a lovely narrative that is alive with music from the very beginning. Five-year-old Irving glimpses the Statue of Liberty as he and his family, fleeing the pogroms of Russia, arrive in New York on a ship full of immigrants: "A melody rose and flew to her like Noah's dove in search of safe land: Shema Yisroel - Hear, O Israel." On the streets of New York "the melodies in his head mixed with the crack of stickball games, the wail of the ragmen,and the creak of cartwheels on the cobblestones."The story of the unlikely beginnings of this self-taught songwriter is a fascinating one: he sang on street corners, got a job as a singing waiter, enlisted the restaurant pianist to help him write "Marie from Sunny Italy" which sold for 37 cents.Irving Berlin lived to be 101, yet Churnin paints in vivid strokes what feels like a full accounting of his life, particularly his inspiration for "God Bless America," the radio hit sung by Kate Smith that inspired the U.S. on the eve of the dark days of World War II. The book notes that Berlin, who donated all proceeds from the song to Scout organizations, wrote it as "a thank you to the country that opened its arms to countless people from all over the world, including a homeless boy who came toAmerica with nothing but music in his heart.

" The vivid, distinctive illustrations are bya California artist and reflect his "love for art [that] came from countless hours of reading comics, playing video games, and '90s Saturday morning cartoons.".