Baby Beats: Let’s Learn 4/4 Time!

Animalian marching band members move from practice to performance in this board book introduction to musical notes and meter. As an array of creatures sporting red jackets and neat black boots gather on a daisy-sprigged lawn, musical bars form in the sky above. Text establishes quarter notes as the baseline of 4/4 time. (“Count out loud,” the text urges, as “One! Two! Three! Four!” appears in four-count bars.) Subsequent spreads key four-syllable words to whole notes (“Alligator!”), two-syllable words to half notes (“Lion! Tiger!”), and monosyllabic words to quarter notes (“Fox! Cat! Rat! Bat!”). The unconventional treatment may prove confusing (Mary is transcribed as a half note instead of the traditional two quarter notes), and the final spread uses symbols and lyrics not previously introduced, but Stubbings’s animals, which march with verve, should delight the intended audience. Simultaneously available: Let’s Learn 2/4 Time! and Let’s Learn 3/4 Time! Ages up to 3. [em](May) [/em]