Book Review: Picture Book of Musical Instruments

A Book You Can Buy From Me

Book Title: Picture Book of Musical Instruments


Author: Marion Lacey

Date: 1942

Publisher: Lothrop Lee & Shepard

ISBN: none

Length: 55 pages including index

Illustrations: drawings by Leonard Weisgard; more drawings than text

Quote: "Originally all the wood winds were made of wood. Now, however, metal is often used."

This thin little book was written for adult symphony-goers. The drawings are recognizable and clever, but don't really show children what the instruments look like as clearly as photos would. There's not much text, and lines like "The English horn is half again as large as the oboe, and is pitched a fifth lower" are obviously addressed to people who know how big an oboe is and what a fifth sounds like.

This book was recently discarded from my local library because it wasn't circulating. I can see why. It was mis-shelved with the picture books written for kindergarten and first grade readers. It has no business in their corner of the library.

Marion Lacey didn't even consider the musical instruments that get most use today. One might understand the claim that the bang and twang of much popular music wasn't what she would have called music, but where are the wood blocks, triangles, tambourines, autoharps, and recorders that first grade students actually play? What about the organ or piano they might hear at church? What about the guitars, harmonicas, keyboards, and miscellaneous "folk" instruments their parents might play for fun? The Picture Book of Musical Instruments is written from the viewpoint of a Music Snob who admits only symphonies as "music." This attitude has probably done more than any other single factor to reduce Americans' interest in symphonies.

So, as a first book for music-loving children, this is a bad choice. And I might add that the physical construction of this book suffered from wartime austerities. When I read my copy, I laid it across my knees, and when I'd finished, short as the book was, there were freshly faded spots on the faded red cover, and spots of red dye on my knees.

As a souvenir for symphony lovers...it's not as good as From These Comes Music, but it might be treasured as a souvenir of an occasion or a person.