I suddenly remembered I had this little pretty board book saved for some time and asked him “Shall I sing you a special song?” He paused, intrigued, nodded and quickly climbed into my lap to see the book I had pulled off the bookshelf. 

I gave a most imperfect and off-key rendition of Louis Armstrong “What a wonderful world” and… he loved it . He gently caressed each page with his cute little fingers as I sang, pausing longly on the pages with the children holding hands and the kid diving in the ocean amongst the fish (“where is the baby, mummy?!”) and then asked we did it “encore” and “encore” and “encore”…

The book is a joyful, lyrical, amazing pairing to the song and it is so happily coloured, like all Tim Hopgoed’s books. We love it. Little gosling forgot all about his troubles and was back to his playful, cheerful self. Now, he occasionally entertains his very sleepy (and annoyed) dad at 5.30 a.m. singing the song and corrects me sternly when I get a line wrong. Mea culpa, I keep forgetting “the bright blessed day” and improvise..

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Illustrated in warm tones of pink and yellow and orange, it introduces one by one ten instruments – brass, reeds and strings included, as well as the vocabulary for the musical groups, culminating with a chamber group of ten that gives a concert in a fancy concert hall, closing with a bow and an “encore”. It’s a pretty accurate image and sequence of how a classical concert unfolds. Written in rhyme, the verses describe the physical appearance of instruments as much as the tones and feelings they convey to the audience. The portrayal of the members of the orchestra reflects the instrument they’re playing. And they all seem to be swaying and moving to the rhythm of the music. The pages are full of musical scores and musical notes flying around. Illustrations are so very fluid, flowing and, ultimately, musical. 

I feared the vocabulary may be too complicated for a two years old, but little gosling enjoys the sound of the words and musicality of the rhyme. Take, for example, “With mournful moan and silken tone, itself alone comes one trombone”. We play at guessing the instruments and the order in which they appear. He gets particularly excited at the flute and the French horn, as well as at the conductor. He is also smitten with the two cats, mouse and dog playing on each page, until eventually falling asleep at the end of the concert, after dancing together to the music of the orchestra. He likes to repeat mommy’s commentary to the illustrations: “when the concert is finished and the orchestra has gone home, the concert hall is cleaned and the dog, the cats and the mouse go to sleep” :). 

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