ZAP! BOOM! POW! SUPERHEROES OF MUSIC presents 12 Classical Composers - as Superheroes! What if a fantastic musician like Bach could catch a bolt of lightning on his ten-day walk to visit a famous organist? "Zap!" What if Beethoven suddenly zoomed down from the heavens to play the drums while suspended in mid-air? "Boom!" What if Tchaikovksy transformed himself into a magical Nutcracker Prince to defeat the Mouse King? "Pow!"
With "ZAP! BOOM! POW: Superheroes of Music," Lucy A. Warner, a professional musician and award-winning music teacher, has created a strikingly entertaining, surprisingly appealing, and informative book with eye-popping color graphic novel-style illustrations (Patrick Ackerman), destined to whet the appetite of students in grades K-5 to know, appreciate, and relate to 12 "superhero" composers.
A delightfully designed (Jaclyn Alvarado) 40-page, hardcover book, "ZAP! BOOM! POW: Superheroes of Music" is a joyful adventure. It features mini-bios of 12 must-know classical music composers - Antonio Vivaldi, Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Josef Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Giuseppe Verdi, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonin Dvorak, Edvard Grieg, and Manuel de Falla- each as a colorful superhero with a special power.
This charming book also features fun facts on music and the composers' lives, a map of Europe showing the cities of origin of the composers, illustrations of relevant orchestral instruments, a composer timeline, a music glossary, a clever quote from each composer, a question-answer page, and a bibliography along with Internet links for listening and viewing one selected musical piece for each famous musician. In short,
"ZAP! BOOM! POW: Superheroes of Music" is an engaging and enjoyable way to introduce students to 12 of the giants of western classical music. The innovative book is perfect for children, parents, teachers, and all music-loving adults.
What a delightful book for kids and their parents to learn about music and musicians! The anecdotes in the stories about the composers are amusing and instructive, and introduce some of their most famous pieces in an engaging way. The illustrations are in the best comic book style and fairly jump off the page and into your imagination.
My son, age 8, LOVES this book! He loves the illustrations which make it look like a fun comic book. He loves how the book is laid out and how easily he can learn information on each composer. There are the pages dedicated to each musician, and at the back a glossary and a helpful timeline that shows when each musician lived. My son's teacher assigns him weekly reading responses (little book reports) and this new trimester he is allowed to do nonfiction, so he happily opened this book and was actually giddy looking through it! He seems to think that nonfiction books are "where it's at" now. Highly recommended!!
"Sure-fire fun!"
