Summoning the Phoenix

Description

I like this book because of all the expressions of the music. Like I like the one where she said she liked the fish lips best, but it was funny because she said, “Eww, not a real kiss!” This book is about music and musical instruments. But they are not the instruments we usually see in orchestras; these are Chinese instruments. On each page, there is an instrument and the page tells you about the instrument. Some instruments have a story or legend about them. There is also a poem about each instrument, and about the child playing it in a Chinese orchestra. Some of the instruments were an Erhu, a Yangqin, a Dizi, and a Sheng. We watched videos about each instrument after we read about it and that was really fun for me, because it told me what type of instrument it was and what it sounded like in real life. The pictures were pretty. I liked all of them. My favorite, though, was the one where the girl had a silk skirt. She was playing a Pipa, which is like a mandolin, and was swinging on a swing above a stage.