Johann Sebastian Bach

I’ll admit: I side-eyed the idea of a Bach biography clocking in at eight minutes. But *Johann Sebastian Bach* pulls off what most hour-long kids’ bios bungle—it makes the man feel *alive*. Mattern’s writing zeroes in on the juicy bits: Bach’s jail time for quitting a job (a detail that had my 9-year-old gasping), his rivalry with a ‘musical show-off’ organist, and the sheer audacity of composing masterpieces while parenting a small army. It’s history with a pulse, not a lecture. Crookham’s narration is the glue. His tone walks a tightrope—authoritative but never stuffy, playful but not silly. When he voices Bach’s defiance (‘*I* know what good music sounds like!’), you can hear the smirk. The production is clean, though I wished for a smidge more dynamic range; the delivery is so even that a few dramatic moments (like Bach’s final, unfinished fugue) could’ve used a touch more gravitas. And yes, the brevity is both a strength and a weakness: parents might crave a deeper dive into the music itself (a 30-second clip of the *Toccata and Fugue* would’ve been magic), but as a gateway? It’s flawless. My kid immediately asked to hear ‘that organ song,’ and honestly, what more could you want?