Music Book Review: The Story Orchestra – The Planets

I am finally back with a proper blog post, and a book review as well! I said in my post earlier this month that I would probably manage to do a Music Book Review in October, and I am getting in there with just 2 days to spare – maybe only 1 by the time you read this! October’s Music Book Review, the first one after quite a considerable break while I have been getting my new small business off the ground, is one of the fantastic Story Orchestra series of books. I love this series, which takes famous pieces of classical music – some opera, some ballet, some orchestral music – and through either telling the story behind the opera or ballet, or writing a story to go along with the music, and combining that, Jennifer Courtney-Tickle’s beautiful illustrations and excerpt from the piece that each book is based on, the books bring the music to life for young readers.

Music Book Review: The Story Orchestra – Peter and the Wolf

Music Book Review: The Story Orchestra -The Magic Flute

Music Book Review: The Story Orchestra – In the Hall of the Mountain King

Music Book Review – The Story Orchestra, Four Seasons In One Day by Jessica Courtney-Tickle

Music Book Review: The Story Orchestra – Swan Lake

I have read quite a few of this series of books, and if you are interested in reading more about the other books in the series, please click on the links above. This book is all about the story behind The Planets by British Composer Gustav Holst, who was born quite close to my neck of the woods in Cheltenham.

Welcome to The Planets! One night two children discover their new space-rocket bunk beds are more magical than they could ever have imagined, as they blast up into the glittering night sky. From Mars to Neptune and all the way back to planet Earth, follow Helen and Tim as they adventure through our amazing solar system.

Blurb from the back of the book

And so begins our tale based on Holst’s music, The Planets. This book brings Holst’s music to life for young children, by telling the tale of space mad siblings Helen and Tim, whose mother has just finished decorating their bedroom with a space theme. On their very first night as they snuggle down in their new rocket themed bunk beds, they hear a strange whooshing noise, and so begins an exciting adventure through the solar system made even more magical by its music accompaniment – The Planets by Holst. You will have to read the book to find out what happens.

The Planets is a set of separate shorter pieces of music, each one of them painting a picture with music of one of the planets in the solar system. Each piece has its own very distinct character, and I have always enjoyed listening to this work both in their individual movements, and talking to my children about the planet it is describing with music, and as a whole work. The music is very famous, I would bet good money that most people will have heard the opening to Mars, and may well have thought that it was used in the film Star Wars; and Jupiter has the melody that was used for the hymn I vow to thee my country in it, which parents of young children, or even slightly older children who still like watching the amazing Bluey, will recognise Jupiter from the episode Sleepytime. So you may well recognise many of the excerpts from The Planets piece even if you think you don’t know it yet when pressing the quaver note symbol (quarter note, for my American readers) to hear excerpts from the music alongside the story.

As I mentioned above, each movement from The Planets represents a different planet in the solar system. As well as reading the book together, you could ask your children to pick one of the planets and draw a picture of that planet. you could pick up a book about the various planets (Usborne books have a few good books that would help with this, and when reading about each planet, put the relevant movement on to listen to and ask them if they think Holst has made a piece of music that sounds like that planet. There are many ways you can use this piece of music to fire up your child’s imagination, and this book is a great springboard into the music. You can find many, many versions of this piece of music wherever you stream your music, and I am sure that there are also versions on platforms like YouTube as well.

At the end of the story, the book gives you a glossary defining some of the terms used either within the story itself or the description of each of the musical excerpts on the following page that your children may not be familiar with, such as “crescendo”, “pizzicato” and “triple time”. There is also a very short biography of the composer, Gustav Holst, along with a very brief introduction to the piece, setting its composition into its historical context. Finally, you can hear all of the different excerpts from The Planets in one place on the final page of the book. For each excerpt, there is a short description of the music as well as information about where in the piece you can find this particular excerpt.

Would your child enjoy this book? Well as always, you know your child best, what they enjoy reading with you, and what sort of book they get most out of. In terms of understanding the story, I would say that depending on whether you are reading this to your child, or they are reading it for themselves, this is a great book for children aged 5 to 8. Of course, with buttons to press to listen to the music, that has always been a winner in my house from when my children were very small. And the buttons are quite light touch as well, meaning that even small children year would be strong enough to press it and get the music to play.

At the time of writing the book is available from Amazon (and other retailers) priced at £13.29, though you should always bear in mind that the prices on Amazon fluctuate with demand. The book is also available from many other book retailers.

If you have enjoyed reading my blog post, thank you. I am always looking for ideas for the blog, so would love to hear from you with suggestions for topics you would like me to cover in the future. Also, if you would be interested in supporting me to keep this blog running, buying the books to review here, and supplies to make the DIY instruments, for example, I would be absolutely delighted if you would consider buying me a coffee using the following link: Buy Me A Coffee Thank you!!