Math and music (and picture books)

Leo and I went to the Kennedy Center on Sunday to see (and hear) an NSO Ensemble program for families called Connections:  MORE Math and Music (reviewed in the Washington Post today, 1/8/08).  The program was a good fit (maybe a little advanced) for Leo, who likes math and is just starting his second year of violin.

We also re-read two of our favorite picture books about music with Milly, who stayed home with her dad.  Surprise!  Both of them are also in some way about math, although I wouldn't have thought of either of them if asked to recommend a math-related picture book.

Caldecott Honor winner Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin by Lloyd Moss, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman (Simon and Schuster, 1995) is also counting book:  it starts with a trombone playing alone (solo) and adds orchestral instruments one by one (duo, trio, etc.) until it has "a chamber group of ten."  Moss's well-written rhyming verses are perfectly attuned to the isntruments they introduce.  And Priceman's illustrations, done in gouache, contribute an energetic and colorful cast of musicians.

And in The Philharmonic Gets Dressed by Karla Kuskin, with illustrations by Marc Simont (HarperCollins, 1982), 105 members of the Philharmonic Orchestra (92 men and 13 women) get dressed for work.  Kuskin's quiet, precise text tells us how many take showers or baths (or bubblebaths); how many of the men stand up or sit down to get into their pants; etc.  I think Simont's spot illustrations of the various members of the orchestra are delightful, too.

Oh, and another thing these two books have in common:  great last lines.  But I can't quote them here, because you have to read the book first!

Poetry Friday: Good King Wenceslas

Good King Wenceslas; original carol by John M. Neale; illustrated by Tim Ladwig (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2005).

"Good King Wenceslas look'd out

on the feast of Stephen,

when the snow lay round about,

deep and crisp and even."

Ladwig, working in watercolor, liquid acrylic, and oil on paper, beautifully illustrates Neale's carol about the tenth-century Bohemian king who goes out with his page to give alms to a peasant on St. Stephen's Day (the second day of Christmas, December 26).  I like Ladwig's framing device, a little boy looking at the statue of Wenceslas in Prague and "imagin[ing] a long time ago..."; the same little boy (and his dog) appears in the story as Wenceslas's page.  A "Historical Note" at the back of the book tells us that Neale wrote the carol in 1853 to inspire children to be generous on St. Stephen's Day: it's not too late!

See this article in Wikipedia for the full text of the carol and notes on its form (it was set to the melody of a thirteenth century Swedish spring song).  There is also another picture book about Wenceslas by Geraldine McCaughrean (whose work I very much like); illustrated by Christian Birmingham (Transworld, 2007); this one appears to be a prose retelling of the Wenceslas legend.

[Leo is finally interested in knights, kings, and castles, much to the delight of his medievalist mother (me); he especially liked Ladwig's warm illustrations of the castle interiors.]

Fox and geese

Leo is learning to play Song of the Wind on his 1/8 size violin.  I like this folk song, and not only because it's not Twinkle or one of its endless variations.  Leo likes it, too.  Then his teacher (Miss Sarah) suggested that he sing along as he plays.  We didn't know the words (they're not in the Suzuki Violin School book we're using), so she sang them to us:

• Fox you chased the goose last night
• You picked the fattest one (picked the fattest one)
• Now I'm going to hunt you down and get you with my gun, gun, gun
• Now I'm going to hunt you down and get you with my gun.

Leo, who as you'll come to know is a sensitive little guy, and I must have been visibly shocked, because Miss Sarah suggested we make up our own words.  This is what we came up with:

• Then it pecked you on the nose and made you want to run, run run
• Then it pecked you on the nose and made you want to run.

Much better.  Anyway, the episode reminded me of this book:  The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night: An Old Song Illustrated by Peter Spier (Random House, 1961; it won a Caldecott Honor).  I first read it, appropriately enough, on a chilly night in New England, at my in-laws' house in Bristol, RI.  I wasn't familiar with the song (recorded by Burl Ives in 1945), but I loved Spier's lighthearted pen-and-ink (and watercolor, on alternate double page spreads) illustrations: detailed, historically accurate, funny (see the expression on the face of the terrified goose).  This is what autumn should look like.

I haven't read it to the kids on any of our visits to RI, thinking that Leo, unlike the fox, might mind the "quack-quack-quack, and the legs all dangling down-o."  I just noticed that the goose (and the duck) join the fox family in a sing-along at the end of the book, though; maybe we'll gather around the piano ourselves and sing it together tomorrow.  After we eat our turkey, of course.  Happy Thanksgiving!  Gobble, gobble, gobble.

[The Fox was also recorded by Pete Seeger on his collection of animal folk songs Birds, Beasts, Bugs and Fishes (Smithsonian Folkways).  We love folk songs; I'll have to check this one out.]