A is for Oboe: The Orchestra’s Alphabet

I really wanted to like A is for Oboe because I love music, but unfortunately this book disappoints on many levels. It’s clearly produced as a picture book for children, but it is not written for children. My younger siblings were bored to tears and I barely made it through myself.

The ABC book theme is kind of irrelevant because it seems more like the author was just curious if she could connect music to all the letters of the alphabet, which she sort of does, but not in a “let’s learn the alphabet” sort of way. What I mean is, like, the letter Y is for “yes” and for “you” and she goes on and on trying to justify why they are relevant.

There are so many run-on phrases that are barely poetic, like how keyboards “roar or pluck, prickle like porcupines, or lift us like a one-winged Pegasus with black and white keys to delight, unlock, and open the gates of wonderment.” It’s just too over the top to be interesting.

The cover is an accurate representation of the rest of the illustrations, which are okay but nothing spectacular. All in all, it’s a book marketed to kids but totally not for kids.