Author: Marty Gold and Debbie Cavalier
Book: Learning to Play Piano for the Very Young
Age Range: Ages 4 through 7
Description: Regular readers are probably more familiar with Cavalier's kids music side project, Debbie and Friends, but she's also an administrator at the Berklee College of Music, with more than 100 music method books and arrangements to her credit. Marty Gold arranged and produced many artists and dozens of records (and is Cavalier's grandfather). So this slim instruction book is very much down their alley.
The 24-page book will not turn your child into the next Mozart. Rather, it's a good introduction to the piano (or full-sized keyboard) that can be useful to gauge your child's interest in and readiness for actual piano lessons. (Or patience -- Little Boy Blue, six years old at the time we received the book -- probably isn't ready for the attention required of piano lessons.) The use of little pictures (an elephant to represent the note of "E," for example) is cute, and pretty useful. There are seven songs (with chord notations, though I suspect that anyone adept enough at reading chord notations won't actually need them for these simple songs). It's a fun little book and so long as you have the properly-scaled expectations for what's inside, you'll probably like it.
[Disclosure: I received a copy of the book for possible review.]
