Ian Marcusiu- The Carnival of Animals

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. This refreshing and simple take on learning about classical music is fun and easy to help children learn. If kids are interested in music at a younger age, they will be more likely to want to continue on with music for the remainder of their time in school and hopefully beyond. Books like this one make are perfect for getting students to want to continue learning more about music.