About This Book:
Matthew Forsythe meets Richard Scarry in this stunning debut that celebrates embracing your voice and finding a place in your community!
In a town bursting with music, everyone marches to the beat of their own drum. Except for a quiet mouse named Bell, who doesn’t yet know what her sound is. She tries honking, tooting, strumming, even tapping, just like she hears her neighbors doing. But none of it feels quite right! None of it feels like Bell. Figuring out her place in the village, it turns out, might just mean finding her own voice first.
Lizzy O’Donnell’s sumptuous storytelling delicately demonstrates that we find true harmony within our communities when we embrace our truest selves.
*Review Contributed By Karen Yingling, Staff Reviewer*
Musical Adventure in Town
While there is plenty of music in this book, it is more about personal identity than music. I was somewhat curious as to why the town was so invested in instruments, and why no one sang except for Bell. Bell also seems to be carrying around an early 1980s Fisher-Price tape recorder with microphone, which she does not abandon around town like the rest of her instruments.
This is a great book to hand to children who are interested in making their own music, on their own terms. Add this to the chorus of other engaging music books for children that includes Bell’s exuberant Animal Albums, Guidone and Brantley-Newton’s Drum City, and Johnson and Huliska-Beith’s Violet’s Music.
