The Story Orchestra: Carnival of the Animals: Press the note to hear Saint-Saëns' music (Volume 5)

We have all of the other Story Orchestra books and were looking forward to this one, already being a fan of Carnival of the Animals. However, we all felt disappointed by the story in this one. I personally felt it was rushed, with not a strong storyline, and poorly edited. My eldest immediately picked up on the confusion regarding tortoises: they are depicted in one scene swimming in water, as turtles rather than tortoises which are land animals; they are later pictured and referred to as “turtles” in the finale; and on the inside of the back cover, the text rightly entitles the musical piece “tortoises”. Personally, I didn’t appreciate the ending that the boys lie to their mother; it could have been an opportunity for sharing their wonderful experience with their mum but instead the story encourages disconnect and deceit.

'Spectacularly amazing. Rich in so many dimensions from the music to the illustrations, from the words to the texture of the book. A sensory delight.'This is a totally stunning book from this wonderful series - The Story Orchestra. The illustrations make the music jump out of the page as the beautiful melody of each part of Carnival of the Animals is played alongside the story. I love the section at the back that explains a little about each piece. My daughter has loved these books since she was around 2 years old and now 4 it is so lovely to see her trying to consider which instrument is playing. She adored the flutes in the Aquarium. These are such good book for bedtime, but also wonderful for beginning classical music appreciation for children. Magical!

We are big fans of this series - a great concept, beautiful illustrations and fab musical interpretation at the back.However as other reviewers have also pointed out, the accompanying story is very thin, given the rich possibilities of music describing a Carnival of the Animals! Some of the audio extracts are so short it’s pointless. The book seems too short somehow for the money.But most perplexing to a three and six year old is why the great game of spotting the relevant instruments hiding on each page (piano keys in the jungle for the roar in ‘The Lion’ and skeletons playing xylophones in ‘Fossils’) seems to peter out in the middle, so it only works on five of the seven animal pages? ‘The Elephant’ is clearly celebrating the double bass (as referenced at the back) but instead the only pictured instrument is a trumpet ... All in all, very pretty to look at, especially the Fossil page, but a bit disappointing, as if the book was rushed into production or the artist and author weren’t talking to each other sufficiently.Buy ‘Four Seasons in one Day’ instead!

This is the latest book in the series of Musical Orchestra books and has Saint-Saens wonderful Carnival of the Animal Suite as it’s theme.2 brothers navigate their way through a magical world of the animals, including a museum of fossils and we hear the representative music along the way (10 clips, each 10 seconds long).I must confess I was most attracted to the wonderful illustrations in this book, and I know the music is magical (it is very recognisable as widely used, such as in Beauty and the Beast).The illustrations really are divine, such gorgeous colours and animals. We have loved them.We also liked have the composer and music detail at the end.The buttons are hard in the first half of the book to operate. This is because the buttons are all on the last page of the book and you are actually just pushing through the pages to operate the buttons. Even though the paper is quite thin, my children needed a little help initially but then got the hang of it. However, the advantage of this design is that at the end they have enjoyed being able to access all the buttons on one page and guess which animals the music is about which makes up for the button pushing earlier on.We have enjoyed this book and the children have loved the pictures and music. We shall definitely get some more in the series!

I have ordered three Story Orchestra books in the past and my grandchildren love them. This one was so very disappointing as my three year old grandson cannot press the buttons hard enough to make the music play. This is not the case with any other Story Orchestra books I have bought or come across. I cannot really return the item as it was a Christmas gift and has been read to my grandson several times. What a let down.