JONI The Lyrical Life of Joni Mitchell
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JONI T he l Lyrica Life of
S By
i n o J l l e h c t Mi
For my dear sister, Karen, who shared our turbulent, creative, and often hilarious Canadian childhood. And a special thanks to Jill Davis, Chelsea C. Donaldson, and Liz Byer for bringing this book to life. Joni: The Lyrical Life of Joni Mitchell · Copyright © 2020 by Selina Alko · All rights reserved. Manufactured in China. · No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007. · www.harpercollinschildrens.com · ISBN 978-0-06-267129-5 · The artist used acrylic paint, collage, found objects, and wild flowers to create the illustrations for this book. · Design by Chelsea C. Donaldson · 19 20 21 22 23 SCP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ❖ First Edition
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lko A ina l e yS
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Joni Mitchell painted with words. Sitting at her piano or strumming the guitar, she turned the words into songs. The songs were like brushstrokes on a canvas, saying things that were not only happy or sad but true.
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But before the songs, there was a restless girl named Roberta Joan Anderson, who danced in wide-open spaces to the songs of seagulls and the shimmer of her own star. Young Joni drew pictures of animals, forest fires, and wild flowers. Her mother, Myrtle, took her out to the fields and taught her birdcalls. There was a lone train, the quiet of nature, and a small town in Canada.
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But sometimes Joni felt at odds in the Anderson house, like an upside-down bird on a wire. It’s not that her parents didn’t love her, but they were cautious and fixed in their ways. It seemed to Joni that Myrtle was always cleaning, but one time, she told her daughter: “I’ll allow you to paint on the wall of your room.”
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