"Better Than Cookies, as Good as Cake"

After years of going to elementary schools introducing children to classical music, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra cellist Stacy Nickell Miller had a better idea. She decided to write a book about the joy of making music with stringed instruments. Miller says the overall idea of her book, "Better than Cookies, As Good As Cake" was to have something fun and educational for the children to read but to stress the joy of pleasure that comes from creating and sharing beautiful sounds. The other idea she says was to introduce simple musical concepts to very young children with rhymes like this:

She drew her bow across the string

And loved the way the string could ring.

Lisa felt the sound she could make

Was Better Than Cookies, As Good As Cake.

The book is designed so that music is playing or being played while the book introduces the main players: Lisa and Lucy. Beethoven's Ode To Joy and Handel's Water Music are two examples.

"Better Than Cookies, As Good as Cake" is a fundraiser for the Knoxville, Tennessee Symphony. There's a link at SecondStreetDreams.com. There's also an audio component to this story under SecondStreetDreams here on the Yahoo Contributor Network.