Dylan L. Meyer - "The Carnival of the Animals" by Jack Prelutsky

Camille Saint-Saens’ “The Carnival of the Animals” by Jack Prelutsky is a picture book based on Saint-Saens’ famous programmatic work for orchestra. The book employs a 4-line rhyme scheme of ABCB, and introduces all of the animals to children accompanied by elaborate illustrations. The book is also accompanied by a CD track of Saint-Saens’ composition, with track markers at the end of each animal. The book concludes with an afterword to parents and teachers on Saint-Saens and his life-work as a composer. I think this book serves a great purpose in exposing children to classical music. “The Carnival of the Animals” is a naturally a light piece, so exposing children to that in book form and billing it as classical music makes children re-envision their concept of classical music.