My favorite Music Books 

Compiled by Teacher Susy

Carnival Of Animals by Saint Saens by Henry Holt and Company illustrations by Sue Williams and commentary by Barrie Carson Turner. It is fun, whimsical, imaginative and evocative. You will grow to love it too, I promise!

Can You Hear It? Created by The Metropolitan Museum Of Art , this gorgeous book couples famous works of art with musical selections. It has information about instruments in the beginning and descriptions of the artwork in the back of the book. Each selection has information about which instrument is being played and it asks: “Can you hear…”various sounds and characters in the music. It comes with a high quality CD recording of superb orchestras.

From Sea To Shining Sea A Treasury Of American Folklore and Folk Songs complied by Amy L. Cohn

Gonna Sing My Head Off collected and arranged by Kathleen Krull,

Illustrated by Allen Garns

The Musical Life Of Gustav Mole, and the sequel The Lost Music published by Child’s Play, illustrated by Kathryn Meyrick Both have recorded versions that are the highest quality. Narrated by Patrick Macnee, a wonderful British actor. These stories will capture your child’s imagination, as they listen to wonderful classic and world music. The sequel features music from around the world. These books are storytelling at it’s finest. You can’t go wrong with Gustav!

Lives Of The Musicians Written by Kathleen Krull, Illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt. This whimsical book is an excellent introduction to 20 iconic composers, from Vivaldi to Woody Guthrie. The illustrations are hilarious and the biographies tell the story of the composer’s lives in an entertaining way.

A Coloring Book Of Great Composers, Chopin to Tchaikovsky

Bellerophon Books makes fantastic coloring books. They are like textbooks you can color. The illustrations are fanciful and fun.

http://www.bellerophonbooks.com/musical/

Getting To Know The World’s Greatest Composers

Written and illustrated by Mike Venezia (He also has a series for artists) Featuring musicians from the Beatles to Mozart. The illustrations are hilarious; photographs are used throughout the books. They are softcover books, easy to carry, and only about 30 pages long. Your kids will really enjoy these fun stories; they make these “serious” musicians feel more accessible and real.

Famous Children published by Barron's These skinny softcover books tell about the early years af great artisits and composers from Bach to Toulouse-Lautrec

Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin By Lloyd Moss Illustrated by Marjorie Priceman This Caldecott winner is one of my very favorite children’s books! The pictures are magical and imaginative and the verse is poetic and comical. It has an element of mischief as a dog, two cats and a mouse run through the scenes while the musicians play. The musicians are silly as they play, swooning, sweating and kicking up their heels. Your whole family will love this fantastic book!

Do Re Mi By Susan L. Roth This book tells the story of Guido d’Arezzo, the “Father Of Music”. He was the first person to develop musical notation. I learned a lot from this book. It is a great conversation starter, as it makes you think about what it was like before we had a way to write down and share songs.

Meet The Orchestra by Ann Hayes. All the instruments are played by animals and the lion is the conductor (of course). This book provides short descriptions of each instrument. I love this book and use it often. Kids love it too!

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb, by Al Perkins Illustrated by Eric Gurney

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr/ Eric Carle

Charlie Parker Played Be Bop By Chris Raschka

Peggy’s Violin by Barbara York and Peggy Hills

Here is a link to a video performance of the story; it comes on a CD also. https://youtu.be/xQ_wOVpXFdc

Peter And The Wolf, Bellerophon Books makes a fun coloring book version with excellent text that tells the story of the story and information about the instruments.

Tubby The Tuba

The Wee Sing books, CD’s and DVD’s by Pamela Conn Beall and Susan Hagen Nipp. These are an excellent resource with hundreds of great songs from camp favorites to classical music.