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"Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong" by Terry Teachout (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30) Reviewed by Larry Cox

To say that Louis Armstrong had an impact on American music is a little like stating that Picasso dabbled in art.

Armstrong, one of the greatest musicians ever, was born in New Orleans just before the turn of the last century. He learned to play the cornet in an orphans’ home. He left the Crescent City during the early 1920s and settled in Chicago, where he joined King Oliver’s band. It was his inventiveness that set him apart, and eventually established him as an international star.

In a highly readable new biography, author and Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout draws on a cache of important new sources - unavailable to previous biographers - to bring Armstrong, the man behind the legend, into sharp focus, perhaps for the first time.

Armstrong, one of the most inventive, improvising soloists in jazz, cut a series of recordings during the early years of his career known as the “Hot Fives” and “Hot Sevens.” These historic cuts remain as crisp and relevant as when they were first issued more than 80 years ago. Armstrong was more than a jazz musician, however. His unique voice was recognizable throughout the world and it, too, helped define and expand American jazz. He had the musical punch to knock even the Beatles off the top of the charts.

What gives this biography legs is its almost sweeping narrative that squarely places both Armstrong and his music in context. Some of the more fascinating aspects of this book detail how he came close to being rubbed out by the Chicago mob, the real reason why he broke ranks with President Dwight Eisenhower, and the facts behind his marijuana arrest in 1930. Teachout also manages to delicately sort out Armstrong’s complicated private life.

This is a first-rate biography, and fitting because Armstrong deserves nothing less. Like his music, Armstong’s life story is inspiring and an absolute joy.

"Wish: A Novel" By Alexandra Bullen (Scholastic Books, $17.99) Reviewed by Katherine B. Olso

After the death of her twin sister, high-school junior Olivia Larsen and her family move from their home on the quiet East Coast to lively San Francisco, where Olivia confronts life in a new house, a school filled with strangers and a bustling city without her other half, twin Violet. Yet after a magical dress is unexpectedly delivered to her doorway, Olivia finds herself taking advice, solace and - astonishingly - three wishes from what just might be the ghost of her beloved sister.

With the writing chops often missing from authors of contemporary young-adult fiction, Alexandra Bullen deftly and descriptively invokes the uncertainty of death and the precariousness of daily life as a high-schooler. She does not take for granted the intelligence or experience of her readers, referencing both Virginia Woolf essays and iPods with equal ease.

Bullen characterizes Olivia’s foibles and relationships, letting a somewhat-illogical plot unfold gracefully and compellingly. Though the author’s heroine, Olivia, stumbles, she must find

her way out from the lingering black cloud of her twin sister’s absence - and the shadowy expectations Violet left behind - not on her own, but with loving and

mysterious guidance provided by the least likely source, Violet.

Arriving in a sparkly purple gift bag, complete with glitter, birthday candles and a lucky penny, “Wish” is the perfect gift for any wishful teenage reader.

On a bookstore shelf now often cluttered with brooding blood-sucking vampires and the tween protagonists who obsess over them, Bullen’s debut novel stands out as a great read, fitting for

a hopeful young audience

anywhere.