"If I could learn to play the cello well as I thought I could I could show by my own example that we all have greater powers than we think; that whatever we want to learn or learn to do we probably can learn; that our lives and our possibilities are not determined and fixed by what happened to us when we were little or by what experts say we can or cannot do."

Best known for his brilliant insight into the way children learn John Holt was also an intrepid explorer of adult learning. At the age of forty with no particular musical background he took up the cello. His touching and hilarious account of his passionate second career demolished the myth that one must start an instrument (or a sport or a language) in early childhood and will inspire any reader who dreams of taking up a new skill.