Meet the Orchestra

Lovely book for introducing children to the orchestra, as well as the insturments played. Each description includes how that instrument sounds, its importance to the orchestra or the feelings it evokes. Find a music sample of each insturment, play each for the class one by one. Have children close their eyes and have them envision what animal they think plays each instrument and try to articulate why. Then, show what animal they have chosen in the book and try to define what characteristics about that animal lend to the instrument. ( )

This is a very nice book -- factual yet poetical descriptions of each instrument in the orchestra, accompanied by lovely illustrations of animals playing the instruments. I learned a few things I did not know, such as the fact that it is the oboe to which the whole orchestra tunes.

My only quibble is that while the various musician animals are both male and female, the conductor is called "he", as if a female conductor is not even possible. Of course, this was written in 1991, and I suspect it would be more politically correct if written/published today. But really, that's my only complaint. This is a nice book for a child taking music lessons and perhaps beginning to play in the school orchestra. ( )