2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas

May 26, 2014
Madeleine Altimari is in the fifth grade and wants to be a jazz singer. Despite her mother’s recent death and her father’s descent into an opaque and private mourning, she is trying to keep her fingers snapping and her brassy voice at the ready. Sarina Greene is Madeleine’s teacher and, after a recent divorce and a return to her hometown of Philadelphia, she is trying very hard to keep the faith that something worthwhile will come of it all. These two make for companionable allies, and it’s easy to share in the affection they feel for one another. Tougher to accept—or at least keep track of—is the mosaic of many, many other characters to whom Sarina and Madeleine find themselves linked. Although it’s to Bertino’s (Safe as Houses) credit that she has invented, sketched, connected, and geographically located such an elaborate cast, and in the process established what does genuinely feel like an old neighborhood at Christmastime, remembering who’s who is often a challenge. While the jazzy intentions are noble, the toe-tapping, bebopping tone Bertino aims for feels forced—a melody we can see Madeleine shimmying along to, but not ever quite hear for ourselves.

July 1, 2014

Almost ten years old, Madeleine Altimari is a self-described "poor motherless girl in old stockings." Often hungry but pragmatically compensating for her grieving father's neglect, she's a mouthy old soul who doesn't play nice with others. What Madeleine does do is live and breathe jazz. On Christmas Eve, she is determined, at all costs, to sing at a run-down Philadelphia jazz bar called the Cat's Pajamas. Her teacher Sarina Greene whose love for an old flame is unrequited (or so she thinks) is also drawn to the Cat's Pajamas. Lorca, the bar's owner, has just been informed that his bar will be shut down unless he comes up with an impossible sum of money to cover his countless citations and bring the place up to code. That these threads converge is a given. The surprise is in the purely original construction of an irresistible story that takes place in just 24 hours. VERDICT By the fourth sentence of the first page, readers will fall in love with debut author Bertino; delighted adoration of Madeleine will take another half page. This assured, moving, brilliantly funny tale of music, mourning, and off-kilter romance entrances with its extraordinarily inventive language. Be prepared for a quick reread of this novel to try to answer the question: How did Bertino do that? [See Prepub Alert, 2/3/14.]--Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2014
Bertino's first novel, set in Philadelphia, introduces a vibrant cast of characters serendipitously brought together over the span of one long day, the day before Christmas Eve. Madeline Altimari is a precocious nine-year-old who aspires to become a jazz singer la Billie Holiday. She diligently practices the jazz classics taught to her by her mother, a nightclub performer who died the year before. Left essentially alone with her grieving father mired in zombie-like depression, Madeline is mentored by her mother's friend, who owns a neighborhood caf', and by her fifth-grade art teacher, who is dealing with her divorce. Across town, the owner of the Cat's Pajamas is facing the closing of his club for numerous code violations. His youngest son plays guitar, but his father has no idea how brilliant a jazz musician he has become until the night this unlikely group comes together in unexpected and magical ways. Bertino's characters are spot-on, and her special brand of humor brings each one to life in this fresh and charming tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)