An Animal Symphony

Robert Heidbreder and Dušan Petričić have composed a brilliant new picture book about music and the orchestra in Roar-chestra  A Wild Story of Musical Words.

It’s a very simple story, highlighting all those funny Italian words that are used at the orchestra and in your school musical class. By linking the words to their meanings and illustrating the meanings with a zoo animal orchestra, young music students can be sure of a complete understanding of the terms.

Robert Heidbreder’s poetic descriptions for each term give the book a lovely flow that makes it feel like you are listening to a concerto. For example, the word Fortissimo is illustrated with all of the large and loud beasts of the animal kingdom making sounds all at once while pianissimo shows all of the animals sweetly falling to sleep. Use this book with your young music students to practice saying all of the fun Italian words, as well as to securely lock the meanings of the terms in their brains. The book can be interactive as well, you can use it to get your readers up and moving. Select a reader to be the conductor and the rest of the children can be the musicians using their bodies to mimic the animals performing the different musical terms.

Dušan Petričić’s art is perfect for books with a lot of movement and this book has that in spades. The flow of the text and the energy of the musical terms allow his illustrations to literally leap off the pages. There is a very energetic and lyrical quality to his work that we often see in picture books about music. There are so many lines and sweet little animals along with a very animated conductor, readers will love searching for their favourites among the illustrations.

Roar-chestra is a music teacher’s dream.