When Bob Met Woody: The Story of the Young Bob Dylan

Golio, G. (2011). When Bob met Woody: The story of the young Woody Guthrie. Illus. by M. Burkhardt. New York: Little, Brown. Folk singer Bob Dylan grew up as Bobby Zimmerman, the son of Jewish parents who dreamed of their son becoming an engineer. Instead, he was drawn to music and songwriting. This partial picture book biography examines the social and musical influences that created Bob Dylan--even explaining how his fondness for the poems of Dylan Thomas led to his name change. Despite his somewhat privileged upbringing, the future Dylan, who would go on to write some of the most famous protest songs of the 1960s, related to the stories about humble folks struggling to make a living. Woody Guthrie used his own musical talents to bring attention to those particular struggles. Perhaps they resonated so powerfully with Dylan because he often felt as though he were an outsider even in his hometown. Although brief information is provided about Dylan's early years, the focus of this book is his meeting with an ailing Guthrie who would provide inspiration for Dylan's future work. The author does not stint on Dylan's more questionable qualities such as his tendency to embellish his background so he seemed to have grown up working class and poor when nothing could be further from the truth. This is another strong effort from the author of last year's Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix.  This one needs to be read while listening to music from Dylan and from Guthrie in order to establish the proper mood. While the story is told in simple engaging fashion, a treat for the ear and heart, the acrylic and oil illustrations offer another treat: a folksy artwork for readers' eyes.