What drew you and your wife, Lesa Cline-Ransome, to turn the history of the saxophone into a children’s book?
Telling the story of the sax wasn’t our original idea. Lesa was doing research for a book that compared the saxophone playing of jazz legends Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins when she came across the story of Adolphe Sax, who invented the saxophone. His childhood curiosity was too interesting to pass up. He swallowed a needle, was poisoned three times, and almost drowned before he was 10 years old.
How does collaborating with your wife differ from working with other people?
Working with my wife allows me to prepare for the story. My research starts when she begins her research. She reads me her progress as she writes the text. However, once she completes the manuscript, it’s just like working with any other writer, meaning it may take two or three years before I pick the story up to begin working on the illustrations.
What lessons does this book offer adult readers?
Do not give up on your dreams. The instrument was not really accepted until Adolphe Sax took it to France. A few years later, his factory caught on fire. Ups and downs come with life.•
THE STORY OF THE SAXOPHONE, By Lesa Cline-Ransome • Illustrated by James E. Ransome
HOLIDAY HOUSE • MARCH 2023 • 32 PAGES • $19.99 HARDCOVER
Lesa Cline-Ransome narrates the story of the saxophone’s rise alongside Alta Journal contributor James E. Ransome’s beautiful illustrations. Together, the Ransomes showcase how the saxophone was invented by a boy named Joseph-Antoine Adolphe Sax in 1840s Belgium and was considered an insignificant instrument upon conception, before becoming revered and then emblematic of the genre of jazz itself.
