Cover Image: ROAR-chestra!

ROAR-chestra!

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Member Reviews

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* super cute book! ,my dad is a musician so i know had this been out when i was a kid he would have read it to me, too cute!

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ROAR-chestra! is a marvellous book that contains a lot of musical terms.

If you want to teach young kids all about the world of music, this is a great book to start! I always found musical theory boring when I was a kid, so a book like this would have been the perfect addition to our music classes and band practices. Allergro, staccato! So many ways to show musical terminology is an engaging way. Add in animals for even more fun, and you've got one winning book!

I enjoy the illustrations on top of the story. They are colourful and goofy, which is just how I'd like a book like this! Plus, there's also some descriptions on how to pronounce these words at the back too!

Four out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kids Can Press for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

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I am not a fan of this cover, but I love the illustrations inside the book. This is a graphical illustration of various musical instructions like Allegro which means quickly and swiftly. It was a lot of fun and a must read for any kid studying how to play an instrument.

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Robert Heidbreder & Dusan Petricic are masters of their craft. Never has learning musical terminology been full of so much joy.

It begins with bow tied animals of all sorts waiting while the human conductor arrives in front of them.

Then the conductor waves the baton to declare allegro!

And the creatures begin to move accordingly, "quickly, swiftly, race, run fly!"

Each time the conductor switches to a different tempo, the animals follow suit, and a new line of poetry captions it all. The piece moves along through adagio, glissando, staccato, dolce, fortissimo and pianissimo. Readers can almost imagine the music that accompanies each part.

I like that the conductor could be either gender. I appreciate the humour that Petričić integrates into the animal characters. I love the energy in Heidbreder's poetry. It's impossible to imagine a world where these words and images are not always together.

There are many ways to make this book interactive. I can imagine reading this to a group of children and have them guess what the term might mean based on the Conductor's baton movements. If the space is big enough children can move along with the animals. There is also the fun of figuring out which animal fits into each case.

The only quibble I have with this book is that it doesn't have music samples in it.

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Great illustrations but there isn't a story. Certain young readers will enjoy the lyrical narrative but other may found the book a little boring.

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A great way to teach kids tricky musical words. The illustrations are really enjoyable. Great for storytime, bed time OR even for music teachers trying to show a younger person the difference between terms. Highly recommend, this is such a sweet book.

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This book highlights essential music terms with attractive illustrations of animals and conductors. It would be very useful for elementary music teachers, or any child learning about music. It is written in a way that makes the terms simple, fun, and accessible to young learners.

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Well made children’s book music teachers will love using to teach music terms. The conductor expresses the meanings by his hand movements, animals act out the terms, and and action words tell the sounds.

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This delightful book is perfect for introducing some of the basic words used by the instrumentalists in the orchestra. It is cleverly devised to show different animals that match the action words. The author uses sleeping animals to show the concept of the word adagio and animals that can move swiftly to portray allegro. The illustrations are fun to look at and clearly show how the animal's movements match the Italian word.

I highly recommend this delightful book for the classroom and home. Although recommended for ages 3 to 7, I think most Elementary students would enjoy it.

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I thought the art was super cute and illustrated the different terms very well. I could see this being useful in teaching young children music and the differences between tempos and their associated terms. I was expecting there to be a bit more substance or some semblance of a plot, but all in all, I enjoyed this title.

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ROAR-chestra is a beautifully illustrated picture book that ties the animal and music world together by creating a visual learning experience for children (and maybe adults). Performance musicians will recognize each Italian word that is illustrated by an animated conductor and a slew of animal characters. I read this with my 4 year old, and he used visual clues to figure out the meaning of each musical word! This book is a delight!

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A dramatic play of 7 musical words with the roar of zoo animals. The Italian words for brisk and lively, slowly, gliding, sliding, short, detached, sweetly, softly, loudly, and quietly will engage children. A great introduction for children to the life of music.

A Special thank you Kids Can Press and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

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All the animals in bowties are so cute! I wish there was more text. This book only really works if kids know their animals already. Also, they put all the pronunciations at the end after the book has been read.

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Fantastic! This introduction to basic music terms is wonderfully illustrated and cute. Kids learning about music for the first time will find the illustrations engaging and memorable. Each member of the roar-chestra is full of personality and demonstrates the musical term in perfect timing.

Thank you NetGalley and Kids Can Press for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

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A really good book for kids who learn music, or simply curious minds. This is one of my problems: I tend to mixed up the musical terms. And this book helps to remind me that pianissimo is softly, for example.

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As a teacher, I immediately see the value in this book when teaching younger students different musical terms. The animals are a great way to illustrate what each term means. I spent a long time examining each animal and how they represented each musical term. The conductor is cute too!

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The illustrations are lovely and so detailed, I can imagine children really studying them. I found the accompanying text left me wanting a bit more. I just felt that something was missing.

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A lovely book and a great idea, but I am not sure it was executed as well as was expected from the author, as I struggled as an adult to picture the flow of the music - I don't think a child would get it at all.
That said, there are lots of animals to pick out, and they are bright and colourful.

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read the advance copy of ‘ROAR-chestra!’.
What attracted me to this book was the clever and charming cover art! Such a cute idea to have animal shaped instrument cases!
The whole book is just delightful - and I consider it an extra bonus to learn new things myself, when reading to my child, I have a passing knowledge of music basics, but this put a fun twist on it - and made it memorable, too!

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Hmmm… A book that pictorialises seven terms from classical music notation – and that's it. All the animals, from the crocodile to the gorilla to the bow-tied shark, are ready to do what the conductor wants, and we see the appropriate movement and noise-making of the most relevant beasties, whether he calls for adagio, dolce or glissando. There's no plot, there's no feeling this will lead to any further study, and I could see this gathering dust in school libraries, I'm afraid. If you definitely know you want to imbue a child with music reading and that they're a pictorial learner, this is a first step – but you'd have quickly moved ahead of this lesson, it seems to me.

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