Tuscanini

A well-intentioned, music-loving elephant is embarrassed after he tries to cool off a grand opera singer performing in the zoo with a trunkful of water, and she screams and leaves in a huff. Lit Guild.

Kindergarten-Grade 2-- Tuscanini, an elephant, loves music and enjoys conducting an imaginary orchestra with his trunk while his zookeeper sings along to performances they hear on the radio. He also uses his trunk to spray water, an activity that gets him into trouble. At a celebration to mark the arrival of two pandas at the zoo, he sprays Madame La Scala, an opera singer on hand for the event. Unable to sleep after this upsetting episode, he witnesses the abduction of the newcomers and foils the pandanappers' escape. This is cause for another celebration attended by Madame La Scala, who forgives the elephant and asks him to fill in for the ailing conductor at the City Opera. This is a silly story told in flat, uninspired, and sometimes inappropriate prose (in the midst of the basic, banal language, the pandas are referred to as ``a dwindling species''). The illustrations are pleasingly colorful, but they're wooden and don't compensate for this very ordinary story.
- Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Tuscanini is an elephant with a penchant for opera--and a troublesome trunk. He enjoys using it as a hose, which tends to make people at the zoo wet and angry. However, like a certain famous reindeer, Tuscanini ends up using his "nose" to save the day. When two bandits try to steal the zoo's new pandas, the indignant elephant trumpets an animal alarm to the monkeys, the lion and the tropical birds. They succeed in foiling the panda-nappers, and the zoo celebrates Tuscanini as its hero. A famous diva attending the festivities asks him to conduct the opera that night, and he is a mammoth success. This droll tale exhibits flashes of genuine wit: the zoo fetes the new pandas "because they are a dwindling species and need encouragement." But a certain stilted quality in Weiss's pastel illustrations robs the characters of life; the pandas, for example, look like stuffed toys in the arms of their abductors. Still, any child who has been to the zoo (or the opera) will be intrigued and amused by the escapades of this precocious pachyderm. Ages 2-6. (Mar.)*
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.