Clarinet and Trumpet

by Melanie Ellsworth, John Herzog (Illustrator)

Overview

A charming and funny picture book featuring the harmonious friendship between Clarinet and Trumpet. But what happens when their friendship falls flat? Featuring a music-making shaker built into the book! Perfect for fans of Stick & Stone and Spoon.

Clarinet and Trumpet are friends from the very first note. But their friendship falls flat when a new woodwind—Oboe—sets the tone in the music room. Trumpet tries everything to get Clarinet's attention again, but Clarinet doesn't change her tune. The story crescendos until the woodwinds face off against the brass section in an ear-splitting musical duel. How will Clarinet and Trumpet bring the band back together again and save their melodious friendship? With pun-filled text and emotive illustrations, Clarinet and Trumpet honors the important role music plays in creating community. Shake the book, and you can join the band, too!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780358107477
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/30/2021
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,080,645
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Before becoming a children's book writer, Melanie Ellsworth worked as an ESL teacher in Boston's Chinatown and later as a literacy specialist in Maine, having earned a Master's of Education in Language and Literacy in 2002 from Harvard University. She lives in Maine with her family. Twitter: @melanieells Instagram: @melaniebellsworth


 

John Herzog is an award-winning illustrator and educator. He teaches illustration classes at Ringling College of Art and Design. John is a member of the Society of Illustrators and SCBWI, and received the 2018 SCBWI Magazine Merit Award for his Highlights High Five cover illustration. He lives in Florida with his wife, two kids, a pair of tarantulas, a bearded dragon, and a fish.

Editorial Reviews

★ "A lyrical tour de force about individuality, friendship, and community, this humorous picture book highlights such values through musical instruments, showing how even small fractures can become deep divisions....readers of all ages will relate to the loss of friendship and how this can sometimes become an overall divisiveness within a once whole community."—School Library Journal, STARRED review "Music aficionados and pun aficionados alike will appreciate the many musical puns interspersed throughout the text."—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books —

From the Publisher

★ 02/01/2021

K-Gr 4—A lyrical tour de force about individuality, friendship, and community, this humorous picture book highlights such values through musical instruments, showing how even small fractures can become deep divisions. Clarinet and Trumpet are best friends and enjoy making music together until sleek Oboe enters the scene. Clarinet admires how she has two reeds and, suddenly, Trumpet is left in the dust. Trumpet tries to woo his friend back by writing a song for her, but she wants nothing to do with him. Then Trombone enters the scene and Trumpet has a new friend. The woodwinds and the brass turn on each other, quickly gathering friends who are "like them" to their sides. Watching one of the uglier sides of humanity play out amongst personified musical instruments may seem like an unrelenting and horrible metaphor but it is leavened through the frequent use of onomatopoeia—perfectly designed for the braying trombone and the raspy oboe—and the liberal use of musical wordplay as when "the fight crescendoed" or "their friendship fell flat." Bright and expressive digital art connects readers to the instruments' plights. Beyond the usual picture book set, readers of all ages will relate to the loss of friendship and how this can sometimes become an overall divisiveness within a once whole community. VERDICT A timely book that gently explores issues of similarity and difference, of holding on to one's individuality while also recognizing the importance of others, this is a first purchase for all libraries.—Rachel Zuffa, Case H.S., Racine, WI

School Library Journal

2021-05-05
Two instruments wind up playing beautiful music together—after a few sour notes.

Thanks to a tube of loose beads embedded in the spine, the book itself turns into a rhythm instrument when shaken—but there’s no (overt) connection made between this gimmick and the actual story. All is harmony between Trumpet and Clarinet at first…but then in swaggers Oboe to turn Clarinet’s head (“ ‘Is that a double reed?’ gasped Clarinet. ‘I know, right?!’ said Oboe”). Oboe is followed by Trombone, Flute, and others so that soon the band room is dominated by rival camps of brass and woodwinds. At last, though, following some painful discord, Clarinet hears Saxophone’s jazzy honks and realizes that Trumpet’s bright “buzz and blast” would make ideal harmony. Trumpet responds to her overture by agreeing to be tuned, and soon all the instruments (with a few newcomers of the percussion persuasion) have found a new groove. Herzog pastes broadly expressive facial features on the instruments and stands them up in stylish postures on stick limbs. In the climactic ensemble, each of the three coupled anthropomorphic pairs consists of one light- and one dark-colored instrument. Whether there’s anything to be made of that, there’s a bright, infectious energy to the illustrations that plays well with the narrative’s musical idiom.

Unexploited novelty aside, a clever improvisation with neither literal nor figurative strings attached. (Novelty picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews