Peter and the Wolf

This is a wonderfully charming telling and depiction of Serge Prokofieff's classic musical tale for children. Chappell's illustrations are delightful and Holland's calligraphy sublime. The inclusion of the familiar musical theme passages for each character at appropriate points within the text effectively plants the aural element in the reader's mind. And the foreword by renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitzky further serves to stamp this edition as "definitive."

I expected to love this book....and I didn't :) I really wanted to see how Rashcka would handle this "jazz standard" of the elementary music classroom. I can't say that I was disappointed as much as disinterested in the verbal aesthetic. The artwork was incredible. I felt like Rashcka missed his audience a bit with this book - placing too many silly words on a page and overdoing the effect. Younger elementary kids would find that the book moves to slowly. Older kids might be put off by the voice. I do love any way to re-imagine this lesson which, when I'm teaching, can easily feel like I'm offering my students twice-warmed Dinty-Moore stew.

Taking into account my own reader response (one sleepy mid-afternoon reader here), I think it's show more only fair to Raschka that I read this book again, and aloud before striking my gavel too hard and declaring it guilty of inducing snoozes. show less

I just wanted to know what the story was, and hoped a nice picture-book would prove more enlightening than a wikipedia entry. Not so much. I guess I need the music, and probably a teacher too. The pictures in this are appealing, though.

I read the hardcover with the Reading Rainbow sticker, same illustration as the Puffin pb: 0140506330

Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf is reworked visually and narratively by Chris Raschka. The book makes a good read-aloud with many parts, fun repetition and interesting word sequences. Children will especially enjoy the 3-dimensional miniatures that Raschka created.

This retelling of the musical story of Peter and the Wolf is hard to get into at first. The language feels stilted and the attempt to capture the musical beat doesn't work for me. However, my daughter loved it when I read it aloud - so maybe it sounds funnier than I thought.

Love that it has a line of musical notes to introduce the theme of each character. Love the classic illustrations from 1940.

This is a story about good triumphing over evil. A little boy goes out on an adventure and eventually captures the big bad wolf and the whole village celebrates. This is a great story for younger children.