Customer Reviews

Carnival of the Animals: Classical Music for Kids

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Completely enjoyed by our 2 year old and his parents. Pictures are absolutely beautiful. Having the CD is useful. Each of the 14 tracks has a beautifully illustrated 2 page spread, which makes it easy to follow the music - the book and music work very well together. The text, which is written in a perfectly simple and direct and short manner so as to render it very useful, helps the listener focus on different aspects of the music and appreciate the music by putting it in terms we could understand more easily (e.g. for the Lion's March - "the strings are playing the lion's marching tune as he walks...Sometimes he roars loudly. Can you hear the pianos playing the lion's roar?") Our toddler loves classical music but this is a great choice for any child or adult. The entire package - the CD, the format of the book, the pictures and the text - really make this a great way of experiencing the music and just a plain good old story.

This is one of the best books I have seen on Saint Saëns' Carnival of the Animals. The pictures are bright and colourful, descriptions of the instruments very clear and the explanation of the correlation between the instruments and the animals very easy and fun to follow. It is an extra bonus to have the CD included and each animal track numbered. I would highly recommend this to any elementary teacher, even with little or no of music experience.

This is a great book for children. I am a teacher and I always loved CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS. I wanted a way to teach this piece to my students while also teaching the instruments of the orchestra. This book has allowed me to do this. It's just great. Previously, I had bought another CD and it just didn't do what I needed while this hit every point. The pictures are vivid and the writing is very clear. I'm not only going to use this for my lower grades. Get this one!

This one makes my heart soar: a perfect duo of book and CD to introduce little ones into the world of both. As a "Grammie" I can hold the phone to my granddaughter, age 2 1/2 and play listening games with her while she looks at the book, which I have sent her. Bravo Henry Holt for having come up with this. I'm hoping you have more in store.

I am a music teacher who teaches general music to grades K-8. Every year I take a couple classes to teach the kids about Camille Saint-Saens and the Carnival of Animals so I'm pretty familiar with a lot of the music and was excited to purchase this book and CD.

The book itself is great for the lower grades, the music is great for all of them. The CD has nice sound. However I noticed the book gives track numbers for each movement on the CD. But the track numbers are wrong.

The book has listed Hens and Roosters on track number 2. When actually only Hens is track 2 and Roosters is track 3, which then pushes all the other titles up a track (ex. Mules is track 4, not 3 as listed in the book). Also some of these titles are not accurate as Saint-Saens originally named them.

The other problem with the CD is that the Carnival of Animals goes up to track 15 as the Finale. After that there are several other tracks, 16-21 on the CD which are not mentioned anywhere in the book. The CD cover itself mentions 3 other pieces, (SYmphony No. 3, Danse Macabre, and a piece from Samson and Delilah...all famous pieces by Saint=Saens). But they are not listed in any particular order, none of those tracks sounded like the Danse Macabre that I've heard, and there are still 3 other tracks which are not named or listed anywhere on the CD, in the book, or anywhere in the package. So unless you're a Saint-Saens fanatic theres no way to know what they are.

So while I like the book and the music itself, the CD presents a lot of confusion. Be forewarned.

I use this book and CD collection in my preschool music classes. Sometimes I just do one song a week. Sometimes I save it until the end of the year and spend the whole session reading and dancing to the music pretending to be the various animals . They love it. The funny thing to me is that my grade school class (6-10 years old) saw it in my bag and asked about it and so I read them a bit and played a few selections at the end of class they loved it and insisted that I bring it back so that I could finish it. They love the music and the movement too!

"Carnival of Animals" is a great book and CD set to use to introduce children to this fun classical work by Camille St Saens. The book is informative, fun and is filled with bright, playful pictures which help to bring the songs to life. It's fun for adults as well.

I got this book to introduce the orchestra to kindergarteners. It is wonderful; the descriptions of the instruments used in this piece are fantastic, and each animal then has another story that really aids in connecting sounds to previous experiences. The classes really enjoyed it as well; they looked forward to learning about the Carnival every time they came!

The "Concerned Parent" review is related to how their media player goes automatically on the internet and retrieves album information. You can listen and play this CD without any worry. It seems that the media player retrieved the album information of the album "Kicked In The Teeth" by the band/performer named "Zeke". I don't know why the online server returned info for the wrong album. You can turn off the feature of your media player so that it will not retrieve album info if you wish. Those sicko titles are not associated with this CD.

My 2.5 year old boy-girl twins really like this book and the music. I gave them the book/cd one week and they have listened to it about 2-3 times each day since I gave it to them. They like the pictures and point out things going on in the pictures. I like the descriptions in the book about what each animal is doing. The description is right on target with what is going on in the music and it is short enoguh to read aloud during the music and still enjoy listening to it.

We bought this book/cd because our kids really like "Peter and the Wolf" and grasped the idea that the instruments were telling the story of a person or animal.