Max and the Miracle Drum is a book comprised of whimsy and magic. A boy, Max, who loves to drum receives one, and upon playing it is charted off to an island by a Lion to help all the animals sleep. This is a really sweet story on how using your personal talents can help others.

I do admit that sometimes the spacing of the words cut off at interesting spots, and at points I didn't know who was talking, the text isn't lyrical or rhyming which sometimes happen in children books. But I think what really draws people into this book, especially kids, is the way the artwork is done. The soft colors of blue and gold throughout, with the combination of some pages colored and others in black and white really help guide the child into looking at the story.

Overall a good book for younger readers who would be fascinated by the artwork and seeing themselves as the main character Max.

The illustrations in this book were absolutely beautiful! I loooved the use of color in them. I’d highly recommend this book to any parents looking for a picture book filled with a sense of adventure, an appreciation of music and nature, and a nice story that may help their child fall asleep.

In a Nutshell: A fantastical picture book about a little boy and his magical drum. This turned out to be more metaphysical than I prefer in this genre. The story has great potential, but a little finetuning might have served it better. The artwork is stunning. Not exactly my cup of tea (whether now or in my childhood), but I hope kids can appreciate its magic more. This is the kind of book not to be read with the head but to be appreciated from the heart.

Plot Preview:
Max finds his dream gift awaiting him outside his bedroom door – a big drum. When he receives a pair of sticks as well, Max drums his heart out with joy. His music draws an unexpected visitor from far away: a majestic lion who seeks his help.


The stunning cover art first drew me towards this picture book. The illustrations inside are just as much a treat to the eyes. The story, sadly, wasn’t much my cup of tea. The plot is highly fantastical, almost to the point of being a fever dream. This is still okay as many children’s books go wild when it comes to fantasy. However, the execution of this ‘wildness’ left me a tad dissatisfied.

There are some unanswered doubts: Where did the drum come from? Why and since when were the animals facing that particular issue? I was a very inquisitive child and I would have wanted clear answers to such details. We don’t even know Max’s background from the book. The GR blurb begins with this useful sentence: “Max is a seven-year-old boy unlike any other. From the moment he was born, music has followed him—like a heartbeat.” But this is nowhere corroborated in the book. It directly begins with Max waking up to find the gift box outside his bedroom door, with details such as his age staying unspecified throughout.

The book also contains one of my current pet peeves in children’s fiction: kids leaving home after just leaving a note. To be fair, Max wasn’t running from home, nor was he planning to stay away. But going away with a stranger (that too, a lion!) on a long journey is still a risky business, and he ought to have asked his mom first. To be even fairer, I used to love such magical adventure stories as a child (Loved Enid Blyton’s stories!), but now, my protective-mommy instincts combined with the increased dangers of today’s world find it tougher to endorse such behaviour.

For some reason, the lion reminded me of Aslan from the Narnia series. The depiction of his character in this story is also somewhat similar (without the religious symbolism). He felt like a wise King truly concerned for his subjects, who seem to be an eclectic motley of animals that, for some reason, live on a single island while in real life, they won't even be found on a single continent. Again, imaginative, but logically distracting for my head.

Time is somewhat questionably flexible in this book, with everything taking either hours or days. It might be the use of creative license to indicate how young Max has no judgement of time, but kids who take these things literally (i.e. kids such as moi!) might wonder how Max could stay awake (or sleep) for many days in a row.

The text is quite lyrical, even within its simplistic telling-dominated structure. There are some scenes with extended conversations, wherein the dialogues are indicated by French quotation marks.: « and ». I can understand this usage given the author’s French background. (The book is simultaneously being published in English and French.) However, this might be confusing for kids who aren’t familiar with angle quotes. I suppose it could be taken as a learning opportunity; the formatting is clear enough. However, on some pages with many back-and-forth spoken lines, this writing choice combined with the placement of the line breaks might make it trickier to keep track of who is speaking.

On the positive side, there are two things I adored about this book. One: for just the second time that I know of (the first being the Christmas story of ‘The Little Drummer Boy’), a book with drums is not about noise and banging and disturbance but about the drum beats creating a relaxing sound. I love drum music in varied forms (whether the multi-part Western drum set or the Cuban bongo or the African Djembe or the Indian table and dhol), though I can’t play anything except finger-tapping on my table. 🤭 So it is nice to see a percussion instrument get some credit for its mesmerising beat.

Secondly, the illustrations are every bit as soul-satisfying as promised by the cover. Every page is like a work of art, with gorgeous watercolour sketches lending a richness and fluidity to every page. The physical copy would be a treat for the eyes.

On the whole, the illustrations and my fondness for drums are what primarily saved this debut indie work for me. The story was a bit too metaphysical for my liking, and the unclarified details further distanced me from enjoying this thoroughly.

Recommended to kids with more poetic souls than mine. The official target age is 4 to 10 years, which is quite a wide age range. I think the younger lot in this age group might like the book better at bedtime for all its references of sleep. The older kids might end up with the same questions as I did.

2.5 stars, rounding up for the illustrations.

My thanks to author Manu Delpech for providing the DRC of “Max and The Miracle Drum” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Max and The Miracle Drum: A Picture Book About Music, Animals, and Friendship
by Manu Delpech
Beautifully illustrated book about friendship, music and religious belief. The book shows the connection between nature and god.