There's a reason these books were published by Little Genius Books! They're genius! I don't normally gravitate towards books with sounds, but the combination of highly amusing illustrations and an array of excerpts from some of Mozart and Beethoven's most renowned compositions, makes these two books delightfully entertaining. Have you ever seen an octopus playing multiple instruments at once? Or giraffes taking ballet? Pair these illustrations with Beethoven's symphony no. 5 and his piano sonata no. 14 and you have a board book to remember! Of course there's nothing quite like listening to live music, but both board books provide a fun and memorable way for little ones to interact with and appreciate music from an early age.
The above illustrations are from Baby Beethoven, but I'd also like to share some illustrations from Baby Mozart. Structured in the same way, which includes a button on each page and the title of the piece, Baby Mozart and Baby Beethoven provides additional historical information about the composers in the back of the book, as well as new ways to look at the books. For example, Baby Beethoven encourages children to count with Beethoven by counting the number of animals on each page. In Baby Mozart the book encourages children to notice the presence of opposites throughout the book. Here are a couple of illustrations from Baby Mozart.
A set of board books that I thoroughly enjoyed, but perhaps more importantly a set of board books that my three year old spent at least an hour listening to. My only lamentation is that each musical excerpt is only about six seconds long.
Thank you to Little Genius Books for sharing these with me! They are so much fun!