Carnival of the Animals

But oh! what a fabulous night he had had,

When his world was turned into a zoo!

After wandering off from a school field trip, a young boy falls asleep in the Natural History Museum. There he sees his classmates, teachers, and family transformed into a menagerie of animals, from wild hyenas to stately peacocks.

John Lithgow's exhilarating word play, inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns's 1886 composition, provides a narrative arc to the piece for the first time. Lithgow created the text for the New York City Ballet, where the Carnival of the Animals ballet, with his narration, debuted in 2003. Boris Kulikov's witty artistic interpretation of the story adds to the fun.

Publishers Weekly

In this story within a ballet within an orchestral suite, Lithgow (The Remarkable Farkle McBride) adapts to picture-book form a rhyming narration of composer Camille Saint-Sa ns's 1886 composition Carnival of the Animals, which the author originated for the New York City Ballet last year (a music recording along with the author's ebullient narration accompanies the book). The resulting read-aloud takes a flight of fancy as well as a few leaps of logic. During a field trip to a natural history museum, Oliver Pendleton Percy the Third sneaks away from his class and hides among the taxidermic beasts in an exhibit labeled "under repairs." After closing, as Oliver sleeps with the fishes and antelopes, bears and beavers the boy dreams that the various people in his life take on the guise of the museum animals. His classmates morph into a pack of rule-breaking hyenas, his teacher a lion and his mother a tearful cuckoo searching for her chick. A kindly night watchman eventually facilitates Oliver's safe return home. Lithgow gleefully tackles the challenge of inventing a child-friendly story around the music's imagery. His penchant for employing often sophisticated and fun-to-pronounce words remains intact. However, as a stand-alone text, the dreamlike quality of the poem makes for some disjointed, stream-of-consciousness vignettes that may leave some readers scratching their heads. In addition, the author occasionally bends the story line to fit the rhyme scheme, with mixed success. Kulikov's (Morris the Artist) artwork acts as the glue here. He gamely stays in step, providing a fanciful plumed and furry menagerie of wild animal-human hybrids. His sophisticated yet playful treatment of size and perspective along with copious humorous details will have readers poring over many of the compositions. Ages 5-10. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

John Lithgow is the New York Times bestselling author of I Got Two Dogs, Mahalia Mouse Goes to College, Marsupial Sue Presents: The Runaway Pancake, I'm A Manatee, Micawber, Marsupial Sue, The Remarkable Farkle McBride, and Carnival of the Animals. An award-winning actor, he has starred on stage, film, and television. He performs concerts across the country, and has recorded the CDs Farkle and Friends, Singin' in the Bathtub and The Sunny Side of the Street. Visit John at lithgowforkids.com.

Boris Kulikov, a former set and costume designer in St. Petersburg, Russia, was chosen as a Flying Start by Publishers Weekly. He has also illustrated Morris the Artist by Lore Segal, The Perfect Friend by Yelena Romanova, and Carnival of Animals by John Lithgow. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.