Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life of Elizabeth Cotten

This book is about a real person. Her name is Libba. She grew up in North Carolina. She liked playing her brother’s guitar. She was left-handed, but her brother was right-handed, so she played the guitar upside down and backwards. She did jobs so she could buy her own guitar. She wrote her first song when she was eleven. She got married when she was a teenager, and she had a baby when she was sixteen. She didn’t play the guitar because she had to raise her kid. She met Ruth Crawford Seeger, a musician, who hired her as a housekeeper. The family discovered that Libba played the guitar. Libba became famous and toured when she was ninety-years-old.

The author uses train metaphors because of Libba’s first song, “Freight Train.” There’s an “Author’s Note” and YouTube video links in the back. The author made something up about Libba, but I don’t think she needed to fabricate the story because it was interesting enough on its own. This is a picture book. I liked the illustrations. They are well drawn. The illustrations are realistic. I like this book. It’s cool that Libba became famous even at an old age.