Silence Sounds Simple: A Day in the Life of John Cage

John Cage is a man who makes music with screws and bolts or with rubber bands. He'll play a toy piano onstage in his suit. Why? To make people listen. To make them think.

As John goes through an ordinary day, he finds that it's full of wonder and full of music. John hears the seeds of music in everything from slippers scuffing on an old wooden floor and water whooshing from a faucet to beeping horns and screeching brakes outside. He even hears music in the silence of the forest as he harvests mushrooms.

Author Gary Golio's poetic text and illustrator Andrea D'Aquino's bright, simple illustrations remind kids "open your ears / open your mind... YOU ARE / the music / the noise / the silence."