Walker Carnival Of The Animals With Cd

This magnificent project was inspired by Camille Saint-Saens' famous "Carnival of the Animals", one of the most famous pieces of classical music written for children. Combining specially commissioned work by eleven acclaimed modern poets and riotous illustrations by Satoshi Kitamura, this package includes a CD featuring each of the poems read aloud to the corresponding animal music. Let the carnival begin! Editorial Reviews From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 8-Saint-SaÌÇns's playful musical fantasy is well paired with Kitamura's menagerie of art and poems by 13 distinguished poets. Children can easily listen along since the CD offers a reading of each poem, followed by its corresponding musical passage from Carnival of the Animals. The recording concludes with a complete, uninterrupted performance of the piece by the Apollo Chamber Orchestra. The art and poems mesh seamlessly with the music. The first poem, James Berry's Lion, explains that the lion is a Wild beast outdoing all/eagles flying, whales swimming. But despite his skill at the hunt, the big cat is confronted with the question: Do your good looks, your mane of hair,/conceal your loneliness? A double-paged illustration depicts a large and powerful animal, alone, staring directly at readers with the other animals, at a distance, beneath him. X. J. Kennedy's exacting verse in Aquarium matches the dreamy quality of gazing inside this glass house: Flashes of fishes, quick flicks of tails./Scoot scurry scamper of scattering scales./A sponge blows bubbles, sea horses race,/Anemones wave tentacles of slow pink lace. Kitamura makes use of saturated colors and bold black ink statements in many of the pen-and-ink with watercolor art. For The Swan, however, subdued pastels with elegant lines mirror Charles Causley's lyrical poem that begins It is a music of the eye. The swan/Assumes the heavy garment of the stream-_. Because the poems present various levels of sophistication, children will grow with many of them.-Teresa Pfeifer, Alfred Zanetti Montessori Magnet School, Springfield, MA Copyright å¨ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Booklist *Starred Review* K-Gr. 3. Chernaik commissioned 13 poets to respond to the musical animal portraits in Saint-Saens' kid-friendly Carnival of the Animals, and while few of the mostly British contributors will be known to young people, their concise, vibrant word painting will forge an instant connection with children. Highlights include Kit Wright's "Cocks and Hens," imagining a heated exchange between a rooster and his fed-up flock ("He thinks he can fly / Like an eagle or a hawk, / But he's just a feathered fathead / With a very silly walk!"); and X. J. Kennedy's evocative "Aquarium," capturing the shimmering motion of the music. Gerard Benson's interpretation of braying donkeys, which casts Saint-Saens' "Personages with Long Ears" as curmudgeonly music critics, jars against the child-oriented focus of the rest of the poems, most of which can be appreciated with or without the accompanying 55-minute CD of music and readings. Having said that, separating this from its inspirational basis would miss the point; children will find it fascinating to see how their own impressions of the original works match the poets'--not to mention illustrator Kitamura's, whose engaging watercolors shift fluidly among the poems' many moods while lending the whole a welcome cohesion. Jennifer Mattson Copyright å© American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.