There follow a succession of instruments and failures, each expressed in a way that all music students, past and present, will recognize the truth and the humor. But Frederic waves a wooden spoon, raps his uncle three times on the head, and in the ensuing silence draws from the various and sundry instruments the most fabulous song any of them have ever heard. Carlotta silences wolves as she trills Prokofiev's symphony, Peter and the Wolf, ends a drought with an aria from Britten's Noah's Flood, and defeats outlaws and their leader, Skullneck Sam, with a crescendoed blast from Puccini's Girl of the Golden West. Silly in concepts and pictures, this musical slapstick introduces terms and pieces in ways that will educate and intrigue. If you've never experienced singing a book, there are all kinds of opportunities in these new picture books.
Several books take familiar favorites and find new expression.
We see a wedding in a small church, a happy country reception, birthing in a home filled with quilts, crockery, and put-up preserves Lushness outside and warmth inside are enlivened by a small bit of conflict between cat and rat. They extend the story until the little girl makes a pet of the pachyderm and all the neighborhood children play happily ever after in the elephant-shaped pool created when he falls from the sky. Hoberman never lets the rhythm fall and Westcott keeps up her end with humorous details. Cooper's soft paintings take us on a world tour of communities. The book is a series of portraits of people who fulfill the song's lyrics with marvelous expression.