Ben's Trumpet in Reading Rainbow

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Mar 23, 2011 Ronyell rated it liked it

Shelves: african-american, musical-books, goodreads-group-reads

I was reading this book for the Goodreads Picture Book Club for the theme of music. “Ben’s Trumpet” is a Caldecott Honor Book by Rachel Isadora and it details about a young boy’s interest in playing the trumpet after he sees a popular musician playing his trumpet. “Ben’s Trumpet” may have gorgeous illustrations, but the story might not be enough to attract the attention of younger children.

This story is about a young boy named Ben who sits outside on the fire escape and listen to the music from I was reading this book for the Goodreads Picture Book Club for the theme of music. “Ben’s Trumpet” is a Caldecott Honor Book by Rachel Isadora and it details about a young boy’s interest in playing the trumpet after he sees a popular musician playing his trumpet. “Ben’s Trumpet” may have gorgeous illustrations, but the story might not be enough to attract the attention of younger children.

This story is about a young boy named Ben who sits outside on the fire escape and listen to the music from the Zig Zag Jazz Club and he plays his imaginary trumpet. Ben watches all the musicians practice playing their music, but the musician he is most interested in is the trumpeter!

Oh my goodness, I have never seen such gorgeous illustrations as Rachel Isadora has presented in this book! Rachel Isadora has done an excellent job at making the illustrations extremely dramatic and creative as the illustrations are mainly in black and white colors, which truly brings out the beauty of the story and I also loved the way that all the characters look so realistic as their expressions are truly effective, especially Ben’s sadden face when the other boys made fun of him for playing his imaginary trumpet. What I really loved about the illustrations were the surreal drawings that cross each page, such as how some pages contain sound wave lines to represent the sounds coming from various instruments, as I am a huge fan of surreal art, I mean surreal art is pretty impressive since you would never see anything else like them! I also loved how some of the characters appeared as silhouettes on a couple of pages and I also loved the beautiful effect that the images that have glitter on them bring to the story.

To be honest, the story did not really capture my attention, despite the beautiful drawings, because I wanted so much more out of the book such as knowing what life was like during the 1920s and I also wanted to know more about where his desire to become a great trumpeter stem from. Not only was the ending of this book a bit rushed, but I felt like this book should have been a good opportunity to give the audience the experience of living life during the 1920s and the story did not have enough information to bring that information to the audience.

All in all, “Ben’s Trumpet” does have fabulous illustrations that are both beautiful and surreal at the same time, but since the story was not effective enough, this was an average read for me.
...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Feb 28, 2009 Heidi-Marie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, so-called-must-reads, fiction, award-winners, children-0-12, picture-books

For me, this book was all about the illustrations. I was quite impressed with them. I know some were just pencil drawings. But others looked like there was a bit more to them. I just wouldn't know what. My ignorant artistic mind doesn't know much more except that I enjoyed them, was even mesmerized by a couple. And it did such a good job in creating an atmosphere for the book--the jazz age, a city setting, a young boy's dreams. I liked the ending. Glad I got to read this one which I was not awar ...more

Like · see review

From the Bookshelf of Reading Rainbow…

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

What Members Thought

Reading Rainbow