This book was quite intriguing and unique! The author teaches the reader how to seamlessly weave musical understanding in the lives of children from birth to age 6. She includes many activities as well as the science of why it is affective and important for a child's natural development. I do think she underestimates, at times, the reader's understanding of music and assumes any of the activities can easily be performed by the average person. At least in book format, I did struggle to follow along with some, though I have no formal music education. That being said, a book is a tricky format to relay this type of information, thus a video demonstration would probably make any points of confusion more clear. Overall, I really appreciate the novelty of this topic and what the author brought to the book. It was very well done and engaging!

Very interesting and unique. I will try to incorporate some of these ideas into my parenting. Great for younger kids, I do wish I had this book when my kids were even younger!

A great guidebook for parents and caregivers. I did find the specific language a bit scientific at points but for such a unique resource, I thought it was fantastic.

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Joan Koenig opened her own conservatory in Paris three decades ago, and has since been working with children and their families to harness the power of music for early childhood development. Broken into chapters for the first six years of life, Koenig shares different exercises that can be implemented into a child's life for communication, coordination, and various other aspects of growth. Including QR codes that can be scanned to access recorded examples of songs, this book is a great resource to parents, educators, and all who interact with young children.

As a music educator, I picked this up because I'm interested in how music affects development. By the end of the first chapter on music during a child's first year of life, I was hooked. The idea that music can be used for communicating with such young children is incredible to me, and it made me happy to read about different ways that children use music to express themselves. Some of the text is a bit heavy on the terminology, both scientific and musical, but if taken in pieces, it does make sense and can be accessed by any who are interested.

In my opinion this book was too dense and too packed with scientific jargon to be useful to the average parent. It took quite a long time to read and the way the information was given was just very difficult to assimilate. I liked the examples and the exercise suggestions, but the rest just wasn’t for me. I also felt like the illustrations didn’t help this book at all.

This is an absolutely fascinating book and phenomenal resource for parents, caregivers, and teachers. The book teaches the multiple ways music can help children thrive and how in the our day, its practice is more vital than every. It is full of at-home activities and musical games. It is a great guidebook and one I'll return to again and again. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy.