88 Instruments

Move over, kid in the candy shop: a child has been unleashed in a music store, and the sight of its many -- eighty-eight -- instruments has the effect of sugar on him. But his parents are allowing him to select only one. How's a kid to choose? Does he go with "the slideyest... / the squonkiest... / the blowiest... / the honkiest... / the toot-iest or grooviest or shiniest? / Or maybe just the tiniest?" The galloping rhymed text, featuring toe-tapping dictionary rejects ("thrummiest"), is a song unto itself that crescendos with the "plink!" of a piano, which wins the day: "I'm going to learn the plinkiest... / the plunkiest... / and, here to there, / the spunkiest." The rub: "There are so many keys to keep straight, so many to master. How many are there?" Turns out there are eighty-eight keys -- one could say that amounts to eighty-eight separate musical instruments -- which the boy resolves to tackle "one note at a time." The loose-handed, even jittery illustrations foreground his attempts to play many of the instruments; meanwhile, his parents are a mute chorus of comical anxiety. They're a well-meaning pair determined to let their son make his own decision, but when they're out of his eyeshot, their expressions reveal their doubt, worry, and -- as the boy samples the bagpipes -- aural pain. nell beram

The sight of a music store's eighty-eight instruments has the effect of sugar on a child. But his parents are allowing him to select only one. How's a kid to choose? Barton's galloping rhymed text is a song unto itself that crescendos with the "plink!" of a piano, which wins the day. Thomas's loose-handed, jittery illustrations foreground the boy's attempts to play the many instruments.