James' World 2

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During the first wave of the pandemic in the winter, Mo Willems’s ‘‘Lunch Doodles’’ series, in which the beloved children’s-book author and illustrator led viewers in endearingly no-frills online drawing sessions, was a lifeline to families desperate to exercise their imaginations during the lockdown. (He pitched in again by hosting another doodle session on election night.) That Willems, who is 52, was ready to help during a hard, confusing time was no surprise. His two best-selling series of books — one about the odd couple Elephant and Piggie, the other about the mercurial Pigeon — resonate with the hard, confusing time of early childhood. In their whimsy, slapstick, and emotional matter-of-factness, these books have established their creator as sort of a cross between Dr. Seuss and Charles Schulz, with all the responsibility that implies. ‘‘The idea that one of my books would be one of the first that a child reads on their own — that’s incredibly powerful,’’ says Willems, who just published the latest in his Unlimited Squirrels series, ‘‘I Want to Sleep Under the Stars!’’ ‘‘Reading by yourself is the first time you don’t need your parents to do something vital. It’s a liberation.’’

When I was first putting together my questions for you, I realized that a lot of them had to do with things like how we can help kids with the ambient stress of parents’ worrying about the pandemic or politics. But maybe it’s wrong for me to assume that a has unique ideas about kids’ emotions. So let me ask you: Do you think you have special insights about kids? Probably the most fundamental insight is that even a good childhood is difficult: You’re powerless; the furniture is not made to your size. But when parents come up to me and ask, ‘‘How do you talk to the kid about the pandemic?’’ they’re asking me to be disloyal. They’re actually asking about a form of control. ‘‘Hey, you have this relationship with kids. Help me control them.’’ [Expletive] you! I’m not on your side. I wish there was a better way to say it. The real answer is: Show that you don’t know. Show them that you’re fumbling. Why wouldn’t you? How do you expect your child to fall and then stand up and say ‘‘That’s OK’’ when you won’t even say, ‘‘I don’t know how to discuss the pandemic with you’’? Are children not allowed to be upset? Does that inconvenience you? You want to protect and prepare them. But I’m not saying it’s easy.

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Mo Willems

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Max Brooks is getting a little tired of being proved right. An author with cult appeal and massive sales, he is regularly referred to as “a soothsayer” and “a genius”. His 2006 novel, World War Z, was about a deadly virus originating in China that causes global devastation, and his compulsive new one, Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Sasquatch Massacre, is about people forced into self-isolation, huddling in terror from an unimaginable threat outside. But Brooks, 47, is dismissive of the hyperbole: “Everything I write about has already happened. The history of pandemics tends to come in extremely predictable cycles. So if I’m the smartest guy in the room, we’re in big trouble,” he tells me over Skype from his home in Los Angeles (our interview was in May, before the national protests after the killing of George Floyd, but well after lockdown started.). He has the jittery energy of the chronically anxious, and the easy confidence of one who has been thoroughly validated.

He certainly saw the coronavirus coming long before most politicians, and was making preparations in January. On 16 March, when most people in the western world were barely getting to grips with the lockdown, he made a video about the importance of social distancing to protect the elderly. He enlisted the help of the oldest person in his life, his father, comedy god, Mel Brooks. “If I get the coronavirus, I’ll probably be OK. But if I give it to him, he could give it to Carl Reiner, who can give it to Dick Van Dyke, and before I know it, I’ve wiped out a whole generation of comedic legends,” says Brooks, pointing to his father behind a glass door and listing his closest friends. The video has been watched more than 16m times. “I wasn’t given some secret information. I got my information from the news. Really deep state: turning on CNN and watching Wuhan getting locked down,” he says dryly.

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‘Everything I write about has already happened’ … Max Brooks. Photo by Valerie Macon / Getty Images.

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In 1998, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras launched the Intensive Community Program (ICP) as a response to the barriers keeping classical music training out of reach for many would-be musicians, including African Americans and Latinxs, who are underrepresented in orchestras.

The program lowers those barriers in Massachusetts by providing top-tier orchestra training to students in kindergarten through twelfth grade from underserved communities in and around Boston. ICP serves as an audition-based feeder program for BYSO’s six performance ensembles — 12% of BYSO musicians attend ICP.

First Republic spoke with ICP Artistic Director Nicole Cariglia and students Kensie Carroll and Noanddi Manigat to learn about their intensive music community, which adapted to virtual performances in the wake of the pandemic.

Waking up to music

As a very young child, 9-year-old Kensie Caroll woke up each morning to the sounds of cello and viola as her two sisters, twins six years older than Kensie, practiced their respective instruments for ICP.

“She was in a stroller, going to Sydney and Sadie’s auditions,” said Kensie’s father, Marc. Born into their music and the ICP lifestyle, when Kensie auditioned for the program at the age of four, she was ready.

But five years ago, as Kensie’s parents considered having her audition for ICP, Artistic Director Nicole Cariglia was a bit concerned: “I said, ‘Marc, she’s really young.’” Most four-year-olds don’t earn one of the selective program’s 90 slots. Kensie did. And as she began her own cello training, the demands didn’t surprise her. “By default, she knew what she had to do: Get up, practice, then go to school, and then go to the rehearsals and lessons,” Marc said.

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Diversifying Musical Training

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