Welcome to the Symphony, interactive-audio for kids

“What’s that noise?” our 4 year old asked as he stumbled into the kitchen. “That’s a cello” I said, “press that pink button and you’ll hear a viola”. Just like that the purpose of Welcome to the Symphony, a new book by Carolyn Sloan and James Williamson proved its purpose. For the next ten minutes he quizzed me on what is a symphony, about the different instruments and why the mice wanted to hear it.

The mice were a logical question. There are three mice that serve as the narrators, guiding the story from the start of the symphony to its end.

The book stayed on the kitchen table until his 6 year old brother got home from school. Once he arrived he showed off as only the younger one could by demonstrating the different instruments that came from the book. I was just thankful that they shared the book. Call it the soothing grace of music; they sat for a couple of minutes, turned the pages and alternated between who pushed the buttons.

Those buttons on the far right side of the book are the focus of the book. The last time our kids had noise prompts with a book it was laced with train and animal sounds. I wasn’t eager to travel down the path again. My memoires of that were a tiny speaker, in league with the fast food drive through or Charlie Brown’s teacher.

However, after playing with the book several times I realized that the individual instrument sounds are all very clear. Even the louder sounds like when the entire symphony is warming up or playing are clear and express the layers and complexity that the book is teaching. It especially works at the end of the first movement, which is the culmination of the piece, it’s doesn’t blur out the sound and still manages to have highs and lows.

Each page in Welcome to the Symphony tells you something different about what’s happening at the concert. It starts with the basics, like what is a symphony, the concertmaster, what’s a pitch or a note, who is the conductor, dynamics, tempo, brass, woodwinds and more. As each area is covered their respective sound is queued up by a corresponding number that goes along with the sounds.

This isn’t an all ages book per se, but it can certainly be enjoyed by any age. As long as you’re reading it with the kids it’s fair game for anyone and they’ll love pressing the buttons. The book does require small batteries, for that reason it’s not good for kids under 3. Kids older than that will like hearing the very subtle differences between the instruments and following along with the mice.