Pentatonica

by Crystal Hosea, Jessie James (Illustrator)

From a lost toolbox to a runaway canoe, there is never a dull moment in the village of Pentatonica! Based on the stories from the home music curriculum, Legends of the Staff of Musique, artist Jessie James breathes life into the characters in this beautiful picture book for adults and children to enjoy together.

42 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

Crystal Hosea is the author of the home music curriculum series, Legends of the Staff of Musique. A seasoned classroom music educator with over 20 years of teaching experience, Crystal originally created the curriculum to provide a resource for home educators desiring to bring music education into their home classrooms.

The curriculum uses the voice as the primary instrument to introduce musical concepts through imaginative stories, and reinforce these ideas through folk songs, projects, games, and even recipes! Inspired by techniques used in Kodály classrooms as well as the Waldorf/Steiner educational approach to literacy, Legends of the Staff of Musique provides an opportunity for adults to explore the beautiful language of music with the children in their lives in a wonderfully holistic way.

While the stories from the curriculum are thoughtfully designed to introduce music literacy, they were also created to stand alone as literary works to be read simply for enjoyment. In 2017, a book series by the same name, Legends of the Staff of Musique, was created with the release of the first book in the series, Pentatonica. Based on the stories from the Primer Level curriculum, Pentatonica is a lovely picture book beautifully illustrated by artist Jessie James. Crystal and Jessie teamed up again to create the first novel in the series, The Kingdom of Solfeggio, and continue to enjoy the art of collaboration in forthcoming books in the series.

Reviews

[Severin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about how the wonderful villagers of Pentatonica help each-other.

[Bunnymccloudhotmail.Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are looking for a beautifully written and illustrated short series for children, this is it! The eloquent words draw you into the heart-warming tales about helping, sharing, being a good neighbor and listening. My smallest, 4 years old, said she could imagine a map of the town. My eldest drew it for her. They figured out where everyone would have lived, how often they would visit, and how they would help each other with other things that popped up. It actually led to a two- hour discussion about the town, people that lived there and how happy they all were.
The illustrations really give the book the whimsy in art. The prose leads the reader to delight in the amazing drawings.
I really recommend this book to spark imagination and lead to discussion about the ideal we can all see in our ideal worlds.

[Zara Fagen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pentatonica is a sweet set of short stories perfect for reading out loud. It's not often that you find a collection of stories with such sweet characters setting good examples. If you're looking to instill a sense of strong community and good character with your next selection, I highly recommend these stories. No bad guys, no ugly personalities or conflict, just nice people making kind choices. Refreshing. The illustrations are child-like, and the stories are not complex, but I think this adds to the charm - sparking a child's own interest in storytelling and illustrating.