Carnival of the Animals - Hardcover

Lithgow, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689867212 ISBN 13: 9780689867217

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2004

Synopsis

But oh! what a fabulous night he had had,
When his world was turned into a zoo!
After wandering off from a school field trip, a young boy falls asleep in the Natural History Museum. There he sees his classmates, teachers, and family transformed into a menagerie of animals, from wild hyenas to stately peacocks.
John Lithgow's exhilarating word play, inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns's 1886 composition, provides a narrative arc to the piece for the first time. Lithgow created the text for the New York City Ballet, where the Carnival of the Animals ballet, with his narration, debuted in 2003. Boris Kulikov's witty artistic interpretation of the story adds to the fun.
A new recording of Saint-Saëns's suite, performed by Chamber Music Los Angeles under the direction of Bill Elliott, complete with John Lithgow's recitation of the text, is included on an enclosed CD.

About this title

About the Author

John Lithgow is the New York Times bestselling author of I Got Two Dogs; Mahalia Mouse Goes to College; Marsupial Sue Presents: The Runaway Pancake; I’m A Manatee; Micawber; Marsupial Sue; The Remarkable Farkle McBride; and Carnival of the Animals. An award-winning actor, he has starred on stage, film, and television. He performs concerts across the country and has recorded the CDs Farkle and Friends, Singin’ in the Bathtub, and The Sunny Side of the Street. Visit John at JohnLithgow.com.

Boris Kulikov, a former set and costume designer in St. Petersburg, Russia, was chosen as a Flying Start by Publishers Weekly. He has also illustrated Morris the Artist by Lore Segal, The Perfect Friend by Yelena Romanova, and Carnival of Animals by John Lithgow. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

The premise for Lithgow's narrative is this: A young boy falls asleep on a school field trip, stays overnight at the Museum of Natural History, and sees friends and family transformed into animals--the animals depicted musically in Camille Saint-Saëns's 1886 composition. Lithgow's romping, rhyming story, replete with wit and wordplay, served as a text for the New York City Ballet's debut of CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS in 2003. This production offers a good way to introduce children to music they might hear but not really listen to; they'll enjoy Lithgow's lively poetry and Boris Kulikov's funny illustrations while taking in Saint-Saëns's musical depictions of the animals (including Elephant, Lion, and Swan). Lithgow has a great time narrating his CARNIVAL, and children will have a great time listening. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Kindergarten-Grade 2–This absurdist fantasy at first explodes off the page like a well-shaken bottle of champagne, but fizzles into a sappy mess by the end. Drawing on Camille Saint-Saëns's suite, Lithgow has concocted a story in which young Oliver, left behind in the Natural History Museum after a class trip, is visited by dreams of his classmates, teachers, and extended family members transformed into the animals they most closely resemble. Lithgow's stanzas, at their best, recall the giddy hilarity of Edward Lear, as when he describes "The ferrets and badgers and weasels and rats/Were sticky-faced toddlers and snotty-nosed brats,/A species that always drove Oliver bats:/The Greater New York younger sibling." The moments of humor, slapstick, and charm clash with the darker ones–Oliver's terrifyingly toothy music teacher looming over him at the piano, the image of the bird-woman weeping over her empty nest, for example–without ever jelling into something coherent: a story. It's a shame that the text doesn't live up to Kulikov's splendidly rich and vibrant watercolor-and-gouache illustrations, which are uniformly excellent. At the book's end, of course, Oliver is delivered safely into the arms of his relieved parents, but due to the lack of plot, it's a strangely unsatisfying conclusion. Lithgow's narration, included on a CD at the back of the book, is as zany and inspired as always.–Sophie R. Brookover, Camden County Library, Voorhees, NJ
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this story within a ballet within an orchestral suite, Lithgow (The Remarkable Farkle McBride) adapts to picture-book form a rhyming narration of composer Camille Saint-Saëns's 1886 composition Carnival of the Animals, which the author originated for the New York City Ballet last year (a music recording along with the author's ebullient narration accompanies the book). The resulting read-aloud takes a flight of fancy as well as a few leaps of logic. During a field trip to a natural history museum, Oliver Pendleton Percy the Third sneaks away from his class and hides among the taxidermic beasts in an exhibit labeled "under repairs." After closing, as Oliver sleeps with the fishes—and antelopes, bears and beavers—the boy dreams that the various people in his life take on the guise of the museum animals. His classmates morph into a pack of rule-breaking hyenas, his teacher a lion and his mother a tearful cuckoo searching for her chick. A kindly night watchman eventually facilitates Oliver's safe return home. Lithgow gleefully tackles the challenge of inventing a child-friendly story around the music's imagery. His penchant for employing often sophisticated and fun-to-pronounce words remains intact. However, as a stand-alone text, the dreamlike quality of the poem makes for some disjointed, stream-of-consciousness vignettes that may leave some readers scratching their heads. In addition, the author occasionally bends the story line to fit the rhyme scheme, with mixed success. Kulikov's (Morris the Artist) artwork acts as the glue here. He gamely stays in step, providing a fanciful plumed and furry menagerie of wild animal-human hybrids. His sophisticated yet playful treatment of size and perspective—along with copious humorous details—will have readers poring over many of the compositions. Ages 5-10.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gr. 4-7. The initial premise of this narrative, inspired by Saint-Saens' musical composition and originally created to accompany a ballet, is appealing. A boy has a dream in which he imagines various people he knows as animals: a teacher is a lion, schoolchildren visiting a museum are rodents and their parents are fowl, and so on. The dramatic watercolor-and-gouache paintings, reminiscent of Sendak's fantastic portrayals of dream sequences, are quite imaginative, but the images (people with fangs and beaks) may scare some little ones. In addition, the lengthy, sophisticated text, in black type, often appears on mottled gray or brown backgrounds, making the words challenging to read. The key is to relate this ambitious work to its original purpose: to introduce the music and the ballet. Playing the included CD, which features the musical piece and Lithgow's dramatic reading, will help enliven and clarify the story. Diane Foote
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0689867212
• ISBN 13: 9780689867217
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Kulikov Boris
• Number of pages: 40