Book Review - The Remarkable Farkle McBride

For Thursday's book review today, I thought I'd review John Lithgow's The Remarkable Farkle McBride. Yep, you read that right - this cute kids book was written by John Lithgow - the actor. C.F. Payne is the illustrator. The reading level is ages 4-8.

The book starts out by introducing us to the musical prodigy, Farkle McBride - no matter what instrument he tried, "his musical passions were unsatisfied"! Throughout the book, we find Farkle playing instrument after instrument. John Lithgow's gift with words mirrors, in some ways, Dr. Seuss in Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? As Farkle plays the violin, we can hear the sounds... Reedle-ee, Deedle-ee, Deedle-ee Dee! The flute is next... Rootle-ee, Tootle-ee, Tootle-ee, Too. My son, Alex will guess this next instrument... Vroom-pety, Doom-pety, Doom-pety, Doom (trombone). This continues through the rest of the book, as Farkle tries to find an instrument he likes, until he realizes that he can put all of the sounds together! One day, the conductor of the local orchestra catches a cold and Farkle must replace him... can you guess what happens? "So he took the baton and he gave the downbeat, And KA-BOOM! the foundations were shaken by glorious music, bombastic and sweet!"

I love this book - the rhymes are genius, and the illustrations superb. And the best thing of all - there's a surprise on the last page. A huge four-page fold out of the entire orchestra. On the inside of the front page, C.F.Payne (illustrator) says: "My gratitude to Maestro Jesus Lopez-Cobos and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for their help in producing this artwork."

How fun that these illustrations are of real musicians! I think you and your kids will love this book! (Click on the picture of the book above to go to Amazon.com and buy a copy.)