We were given this copy of The Flying Orchestra for review purposes by University of Queensland Press. Opinions our entirely ours. This post contains affiliate links.
Winner of the 2011 CBCA Chriton Award, Clare McFadden’s The Flying Orchestra (University of Queensland Press) is the perfect book for arts-loving families, capturing not just the concept of orchestral music, but moreover, the way it feels to have music as part of your life.
I appreciate books that give children credit for being intuitive, and so it is with McFadden’s metaphorical text and beautifully whimsical illustrations. On windy days, we’re told (“so windy that even the angels lose their balance from the top of City Hall”), a Flying Orchestra blows into town. We then see the orchestra playing around a town that could be anywhere. They play at happy events like a traveler’s return at the airport and the birth of a baby, and they play at sad events like a birthday party mishap or someone lost at night. They play at all sorts of ordinary moments that we can all recognize, like “when someone stays awake all night thinking” and “when someone learns to ride a bike.”
I love this page, on which they play in a shopping mall, “for no reason in particular, but just because someone is listening.” Look at the detail – I was so moved when Miss 6 noticed, “he has a happy tear.”
All of the illustrations are rich with this level of depth and emotion. You don’t need to hear the orchestra’s music to know that feeling of those moments in everyday life where your emotions are heightened, whether it be because the sun is shining so brilliantly on the ocean or because you’re lost in your own deep thoughts. These are the moments the sweep you up to somewhere heightened from your ordinary existence, and perhaps it feels exactly like there’s an orchestra playing music that reaches deeper than any words you have.
You can fully appreciate The Flying Orchestra without any actual music, but McFadden does provide a list of suggested songs for each page, which has made for some joyful exploration in our home. Mr. Artsplorer is a classical music lover, and he took great pleasure in sharing the music with our girls. Perhaps it was one of those “Flying Orchestra” moments for me, peeking into the living room to see he and our kids so happy together with a book and music.
Extension Activity
Miss 6 was really loving this book and the music, so I offered her an extension activity. I asked her to choose a page from which I would play the suggested music, and she could paint whatever the music felt like to her. (Miss Almost 2 got into the act, as well).
She loved it, and ended up doing three paintings to three different pages/songs. If you don’t feel like having paint out, this could just as easily be done with crayons or collage.
At the end, Miss 6 said, “it was like the music was controlling me!” I said I thought maybe that was how the people in the book felt, as well – swept away by their feelings, and swept away by music.
PIN IT
