”It is almost Friday night. Outside, the dark is getting darker,” and here and there around the city ninety-two men and thirteen women are getting dressed to go to work. First they bathe and put on their underwear. Then they don special black-and-white apparel. Then when the one hundred and five people are completely ready, each takes a musical instrument and travels to midtown. There, at 8:30 tonight, they will work together: playing.


　　In these pages Karla Kuskin and Marc Simont combine their talents to give us a delightful and unusual inside view of one way an orchestra prepares.


　　Nominee, 1983 American Book Award

　　Notable Children’s Books of 1983 (ALA)

　　1983 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)

　　Outstanding Children’s Books of 1982 (NYT)

　　A Reading Rainbow Selection

　　1983 Teachers’ Choices (NCTE)

　　Children’s Books of 1982 (Library of Congress)

Karla Kuskin



　　Karla Kuskin has written more than fifty books for children, Including Roar and More, The Philharmonic Gets Dressed, Soap Soup, and Any Me I Want To Be. She has two children, Nick and Julia, both of whom are professional photographers, and two darling grandchildren, Madeleine and Amelia, both of whom live abroad with their parents. Winner of the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, she writes in Brooklyn, New York, and Arlington, Virginia, or on a porch on Bainbridge Island, Washington where she lives with her husband, William L. Bell.