Animal Music [Hardcover]

Harriet Ziefert (Author), Donald Saaf (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 27, 1999 | Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

First comes Mr. Lion's Marching Band, with an elephant on the drum, a tiger on the trumpet, and a zebra playing the clarinet. With a boom-a-boom and a rat-a-tat-tat the menagerie parades loudly by. Next to perform is the Sheep's Dance Band, with a goose on the mandolin and a cow playing the cello. The band's lively music calls all the farm animals to an uproarious dance! The cornucopia of musical merriment in this festive book never misses a beat and will have children stomping their feet. Saaf's brilliant paintings are the perfect complement to this joyous rhyme.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-K-Two stories with broad appeal presented in an oversized book. Both texts have delightful rhythm and cadence and beg to be read aloud or chanted. In "Mr. Lion's Marching Band," an array of animals strut in bright red uniforms with matching caps and gold epaulets. Each musician's stance suggests movement in harmony with the text. "Music and feet /Music and feet./I know a march/by the sound and the beat." In "Sheep's Dance Band," perky mice, ducks, rabbits, and pigs are gussied up in plaids and stripes; a cat in homespun plays the fiddle; the hen hums into her little kazoo; while the rooster, of course, sings "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" Saaf's illustrations are rendered in a kind of folk-art style with sometimes oddly proportioned childlike simplicity. There is a perfect integration of text and picture. Pages awash in bright greens, aquas, reds, creamy pinks, and yellows are the backdrop for droll animal forms. Thin black line is used to outline each figure and mark the horizon. This hint of black complements the typeface and completes the whole. The text is a combination of couplets and other rhymes, concentrated on double-page spreads between several bordered crisp white pages with longer stanzas. Relaxed, exuberant fare-"Grab a partner,/Little or big./Dance to the music/Jiggety jig!"-Harriett Fargnoli, Great Neck Library, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Harriet Ziefert draws on a true story told to her by Santiago Cohen for the text of this Christmas tale. This is her first picture book collaboration with him, though they know each other from their many years in neighboring New Jersey towns.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (September 27, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395952948
• ISBN-13: 978-0395952948
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 9.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,569,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harriet Ziefert was born in New Jersey. She grew up in North Bergen, New Jersey, where she attended the local schools. She graduated from Smith College, then received a Masters degree in Education from New York University. "About twelve years ago," says Ziefert in a 1995 interview, "I tried to get a job as an editor, but no one would hire me as a trade editor. So I decided to write my own books." Since then, she has written several hundred books, mostly picture books and easy-to-read books. "I write books very quickly," she says, "in about twelve hours. I rewrite them three times over three days, and then they're done." She writes about twenty books a year. Ziefert's picture book A New Coat for Anna is about a girl in a bombed-out European city during the months just after World War II. Anna has outgrown her old coat, and her mother trades her few surviving treasures--a watch, a lamp, a necklace, and a porcelain teapot--in order to obtain wool and have it spun, woven, and finally sewn into a fine red coat for Anna. A Horn Book Magazine reviewer stated, "the simple text, based on a true story, carries the narrative along effectively." The book, which was illustrated by Anita Lobel, was chosen as one of ten books to be read aloud by former First Lady Barbara Bush as part of a program promoting reading. Ziefert was invited to the White House for the occasion. The reason Ziefert began writing easy-to-read books was that she felt "they were getting too hard for kids to read in the first grade." She says that she wrote easy-to-read books with seventy-five or fewer words, even ones with fifty or fewer words, "to see how much of a story" she could produce with that limit. She enjoyed the challenge, and cites her book Sleepy Dog as an example. "Sleepy Dog is the most successful book I've ever done, in terms of number of books sold." She's also been working on a developmental program with publisher Dorling Kindersley, made up of books for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Her book Pete's Chicken, which was illustrated by Laura Rader, was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review as "a simple, sweet 'Song of Myself' for children . . . [which] applauds the specialness of every child as it reminds parents of the healing power of just being there for children." Among her other books is a series of easy-to-read books, such as Trip Day and Worm Day, about an inventive science teacher and his rambunctious class of students. Ziefert's book Let's Get a Pet was named an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children by a joint committee of the National Science Teachers Association and the Children's Book Council. . Ms. Ziefert lives in Maplewood, New Jersey and Lincoln, Massachusetts. She has two adult sons.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All Time Favorite!, June 18, 2000

By 

"klgh" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Animal Music (Hardcover)

Two different stories are told in clever rhyme about animals and the instruments they play. The first is "Mr Lion's Marching Band" with trumpets, drums and tubas played by tigers, monkeys and elephants. The second story involves "Sheep's Dance Band" with a pig playing piano, cow on bass and cats and mice dancing. This book has provied a real opportunity for our 2 1/2 year old son to identify many, many different instruments; the illustrations are fun and accurate. Perhaps most of all, these rhymes are clever and FUN TO READ ALOUD!