Best Children’s Books for Music in Our Schools Month
Whether your child is a budding musician or simply loves to dance and sing along to their favorite songs, these books are sure to inspire and entertain them. Choose from the ten best music in our schools month books for home or classroom read aloud activities.
1. Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss
A Caldecott Honor book that is the perfect introduction to how musical instruments work and how they work together to create beautiful music. It is also a counting book that redefines the genre.
2. This Jazz Man by Karen Ehrhardt
In this toe-tapping jazz tribute, the traditional "This Old Man" gets a swinging makeover, and some of the era's best musicians take center stage. The tuneful text and vibrant illustrations bop, slide, and shimmy across the page as Satchmo plays one, Bojangles plays two . . . right on down the line to Charles Mingus, who plays nine, plucking strings that sound "divine."
3. M is for Music by Kathleen Krull
Music and the alphabet have always gone together. Don't kids learn their letters by singing the ABCs? But you've never seen--or heard--a musical alphabet like this one. Beloved tunes. Unusual instruments. Legendary virtuosos. From anthems to zydeco, the language of music and the music of language harmonize in one superb symphony. It's a funky fusion for songsters of all ages! Includes endnotes.
4. Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler
With a simple clap of hands, an itty-bitty beboppin' baby gets his whole family singing and dancing. Sister's hands snap. Granny sings scat. Uncle soft-shoes--and Baby keeps the groove. Things start to wind down when Mama and Daddy sing blues so sweet. Now a perfectly drowsy baby sleeps deep, deep, deep.
5. The Jazz Fly by Matthew Gollub
This Indie Next #1 Recommended book, and Benjamin Franklin Book Award winner, celebrates language and the inventive spirit of jazz. The book includes an audio CD, and free audio download, featuring Gollub's must hear narration set to a jazz quartet. The fly, who speaks jazz, asks different critters which way to town. "Rrribit," replies the frog. "Oink," says the hog. Although baffled, the fly hears music in their words, and that evening he uses the animal sounds to set the insect dinner club a hoppin.'
6. When the Beat Was Born by Laban Carrick Hill
Before there was hip hop, there was DJ Kool Herc. On a hot day at the end of summer in 1973 Cindy Campbell threw a back-to-school party at a park in the South Bronx. Her brother, Clive Campbell, spun the records. He had a new way of playing the music to make the breaks―the musical interludes between verses―longer for dancing. He called himself DJ Kool Herc and this is When the Beat Was Born. From his childhood in Jamaica to his youth in the Bronx, Laban Carrick Hill's book tells how Kool Herc came to be a DJ, how kids in gangs stopped fighting in order to breakdance, and how the music he invented went on to define a culture and transform the world.
7. Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith
This affirming story of a contemporary Native American girl who turns to her family and community. The cone-shaped jingles sewn to Grandma Wolfe's dress sing tink, tink, tink, tink…Jenna loves the tradition of jingle dancing that has been shared over generations in her family and intertribal community. She hopes to dance at the next powwow. But with the day quickly approaching, she has a problem—how will her dress sing if it has no jingles?
8. Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane by Carole Boston Weatherford
Young John Coltrane was all ears. And there was a lot to hear growing up in the South in the 1930s: preachers praying, music on the radio, the bustling of the household. These vivid noises shaped John's own sound as a musician. Carole Boston Weatherford and Sean Qualls have composed an amazingly rich hymn to the childhood of jazz legend John Coltrane. Before John Was a Jazz Giant is a 2009 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book and a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
9. Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat by Nikki Giovanni
A New York Times bestseller and included in the booklist top 10 art books for youth! Perfect for fans of a b to Jay-Z and Nikki Giovanni who are seeking modern hip hop poetry books for kids. Our consensus is hip hop speaks to children is the most essential poetry purchase to make this year.
10. I Know a Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello by Barbara S. Garriel
Perfect for any young reader interested in music, families who love music, and a must-have staple for music classrooms, this funny picture book is an amusing introduction to the instruments in an orchestra, featuring clever rhymes and whimsical illustrations.
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These 10 picture books celebrate the joy and beauty of music and the musicians who create it. They are perfect for introducing children to different genres of music, the instruments that create them, and the stories behind the music - perfect for music in our schools month.