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SOUNDS GOOD!: DISCOVER 50 INSTRUMENTS — Review

rosihollinbeck

Thought for the Day:

“Not all reveals serve the story best if maintained throughout; sometimes you gain more narrative mileage by spilling the beans sooner, so readers see the aftereffects of the secret and its impact on the characters and story.”

~ Tiffany Yates Martin ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

No one wants to have a story explained to them, so try not to do that. HERE is a good post on Writer Unboxed by Kathryn Craft called How to Avoid Explaining Your Novel.

Query letters are tough to get right. HERE the SubItClub has a post with links to several query letters that worked. Very instructive.

There is plenty of advice out there for writers. We all get piles of emails every week with writing advice. The truth is, some of it is terrible. HERE Anne R. Allen has a good post on Terrible Advice Writers Should Ignore from Social Media Friends.

Everyone seemed interested in the brilliant book, FACING THE ENEMY by Barbara Krasner, that I featured last week. I recently watched an episode of American Experience on PBS called Nazi Town, USA that tells the story of the many, I repeat, MANY Nazi camps that were in this country. You can watch it HERE. It is absolutely fascinating. I remember a few years ago when I read Candace Fleming‘s wonderful book THE RISE AND FALL OF CHARLES LINDBERGH and realized how close we came in this country to being led down a very dark road and how frighteningly close we are again. In other news, we are having some amazing weather here in northern California. After several years of drought, last year and this year have brought lots of rain for us and record snowfall in the Sierras. This weekend alone they might get as much as 10 feet of new snow around Lake Tahoe! But it hasn’t just been the snow falling. They have had terrible winds and blizzard conditions, and the roads are all closed. Hopefully, people will have sense enough to avoid the area. That said, we will certainly be grateful this summer.

I ran across a title that intrigued me on the review list for the Seattle Book Review a while back and took a chance on it: SOUNDS GOOD!: DISCOVER 50 INSTRUMENTS by Ole and Hans Könnecke. I’m not a big proponent of books that lead kids to their iPhones or iPads, but this does so in a way that makes so much sense. And, it doesn’t lead them away permanently, but will keep them coming back to the book. Here is the review I wrote for SBR.

Youngsters are curious about music and musical instruments, but will they be content reading about instruments and looking at pictures of them? That is probably not going to be a very satisfying experience for kids. What they really want to know is what sounds the instruments make. Sure, they could take the time to research each instrument and try to find some examples of the sounds, but that is a bit daunting, and the kids might get really tired of having to go through all that.

Ole and Hans Könnecke have found a way around that. They have chosen fifty-two instruments to feature in this fun book. Ole wrote the text and did the cute illustrations of the instruments being played by a variety of cartoonish animals. Young readers will get a kick out of these clever illustrations. Hans composed a musical piece for each of the instruments that readers can listen to simply by scanning the QR code on each spread with a tablet or smartphone.

This book really brings learning about musical instruments to a whole new level. This will become a favorite not only of young readers but parents and teachers as well.

Please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.

Published by rosihollinbeck

21 thoughts on “SOUNDS GOOD!: DISCOVER 50 INSTRUMENTS — Review”

  2. I remember teaching my students in the library about the digereadoo by using a Microsoft encyclopedia CD about musical instruments. It was illuminating for all of us.

    What age do you recommend this book, Rosi?

    BTW, I love your quote by Tiffany Yates Martin!

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  3. I know I misspelled the Australian instrument didgeridoo, so I just looked up the book; What do you do with a didgeridoo? by Nick Page (2008, but Amazon has the date Jan.1, 1870??!!)

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  4. I love books like this one where you can move around the pages in any order. The topic of musical instruments is an immediate attention grabber for me and the intended audience. I’ll be looking for this one.

    Thanks for the links. I’ll be getting to them during my lunch hour today.

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  5. Sounds like a wonderful way of introducing instruments to children, especially since they get to hear what they sound like too. Happy MMGM to you

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  8. “Sounds Good” sounds a great book, the drawings look fun, and I love that he has composed some music for each instrument. What a great idea! Even if you are not musically gifted (like myself!) you can still learn about how different instruments sound. I might look for a copy for myself, especially if there are obscure/little known instruments included! Thanks for the recommendation, Rosi!

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  9. I love the idea of a book about instruments where kids can listen to music by those instruments. QR codes is the modern equivalent of including a record or a CD with the book. I hope they included urls for folks that don’t have smart phones

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