Drumming on everything, begging to hold the violin, humming a tune before they can spell one — that is your child. Pick by your child's age and by what they love, the sound of instruments, the life of a real musician, or the whole workings of an orchestra, then hand that one over first.
Every music-loving child loves it in their own way, so match it to the child. For the youngest, or a lap-time read-aloud, 'Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin' turns the whole orchestra into a rhyming counting game, and 'Because' is a quieter, dreamier tale of a girl who grows up to compose. For the child who wants a real musician to look up to, 'Trombone Shorty' and 'Ada's Violin' are both true stories, one a New Orleans boy who made it big, the other children who built an orchestra out of trash. For the older fact-hound, 'The Story of the Orchestra' and 'DK Eyewitness: Music' lay out every instrument and composer to browse at will. And for a strong reader ready for a real novel, 'Echo' braids three wartime stories together with a single harmonica running through them. Read a page or the flap aloud, watch which one lights them up, and hand it over.