French composer Erik Satie, born in 1866, was an eccentric most of his life. In this funny yet respectful picture book biography, M.T. Anderson conveys the genius and the quirkiness of Satie’s creative mind, and the oddity of his behavior. Satie was unbound by social norms. When he fell in love with a woman who was seeing another man, “he invited himself along on their dates.” When a critic panned his composition Parade, the tantrum-prone Satie sent him an obnoxious and insulting postcard. Friends with Pablo Picasso and other artists and intellectuals, Satie made his breakthrough achievement with a ballet called Cancelled , a multimedia piece far ahead of its time that opened with a movie. He died not long after it debuted. Anderson’s narrative has a spare feel, with short sentences that convey facts rather than emotion. It’s highly effective in creating a slightly off-balance feel, just as Satie’s interaction with the world was slightly off balance. Petra Mathers’s illustrations echo that sense as well. The result is a singular book about a singular individual. An author’s note provides additional information on Satie’s life, including his influence on later composers. (Ages 7–11)

In a brilliant performance worthy of the composer, M. T. Anderson and Petra Mathers present a picture-book biography of the singular Erik Satie.


Throughout his life, Erik Satie wanted to make a new kind of music, a kind of music both very young and very old, very bold and very shy, that followed no rules but its own.

At first glance, Erik Satie looked as normal as anyone else in Paris one hundred years ago. Beyond his shy smile, however, was a mind like no other. When Satie sat down at the piano to compose or play music, his tunes were strange and dreamlike, his melodies topsy-turvy and discordant. Many people hated his music. Few understood it. But to Erik Satie there was sense in nonsense, and the vibrant, surreal compositions of this eccentric man-child would go on to influence many artists.