The Philharmonic Gets Dressed: A Symphony of Words and Pictures

Can you judge a picture book's read-aloud experience without the pictures?

“Maybe there is a nice, direct, scientific way of judging a picture book. Something we can graph and collate,” the children’s author, illustrator, poet, and critic, Karla Kuskin, wrote in a 1981 The New York Times review of children’s books. “On my desk is a ‘device that provides a simple way to determine the appropriate grade level of a book or article.’ It is called a Readability Rater and it looks like a slide rule. First ‘randomly select a 300-word passage ...’ Next, ‘determine the average number of syllables and average number of sentences per hundred words.’ Where those two numbers meet there is another number that ... oh, never mind. Some of these books don’t even have 300 words, and it won’t work with pictures anyhow. How about the stealthy, old-fashioned approach? Absorb the rhythm of the words, judge how well they lead the pictures and how the two pace and illuminate each other. Burrow beneath the surface of the art for ideas, a kernel, that singular voice saying something old in a new way, something new in an old way. Something. Go graph that.” (Karla, I love you.)

Rating the readability of a picture book is a necessary evil, but it misses the point. As I’ve written about, picture books are surprisingly complex and difficult to categorize, “Like poetry, a picture book has to be written in two ways,” Kuskin states, “It must work when read aloud, and also when read silently to oneself. Every syllable counts. Most important, the well-chosen words need to be simple but never simplistic, clear and strong enough to interest a child and hold her attention.”¹ Can a graph (or AI) rate that? Maybe. But I wouldn’t trust it.

Readability isn’t typically concerned with enjoyment, instead it aims to determine the ease with which a reader can understand a written text. But in a picture book—or, at least, in a good picture book—there are multiple ways to “read” the story, the most important being the relationship between text and image. How do the two work together or apart to tell the story? Both should influence our understanding and enjoyment. You can appreciate the language and rhythm all you want, but without pictures helping to illuminate the text in interesting ways, it’s not really a picture book. So how do you judge the read-aloud experience without the pictures? You don’t.

This cover is EVERYTHING!

On the surface, Kuskin’s 1982 picture book The Philharmonic Gets Dressed, illustrated by Marc Simont, hardly seems capable of being a radical and riveting read aloud. First, there are more than 300 words; exactly how many, I don’t know, but it’s much more than you see in most of today’s picture books. Second, it’s essentially page after page of descriptions of people getting ready for work: 105 people (92 men and 13 women) to be exact; and yet—reading about shaving habits and sock preferences has never been so pleasurable.

Over the course of 48 pages, from showers to showtime, we follow the ensemble as they prepare for their Friday night performance. It’s an unusual peek behind the curtain—and the view is intimate! We witness their private getting-ready rituals and routines, in bathtubs and towels, shaving their legs and trimming their mustaches, putting on their bras and underwear, but it’s not risqué—aside from a cheeky glimpse of the top of an older man’s behind—rather it’s a delightfully awkward arrangement of differences and how they come together to form a beautiful, united whole.

Kuskin is a poet. She has a strong command of music and words; her verbal dexterity is evident. Every sound and syllable are carefully considered. But this isn’t a conventional story—as lovely as the text is, reading it without the illustrations is boring. Thankfully, Simont, who won a Caldecott Medal in 1957 for A Tree is Nice, is equally in command of his craft—and in The Philharmonic Gets Dressed, Simont’s lively pictures are perfectly in tune with Kuskin’s words.

Kuskin believed that great picture books were more like opera than anything else, with the images and words completely intertwined.² Similarly, the famous children’s author-illustrator, Maurice Sendak, felt his process of setting text to pictures was like a composer setting music to a poem. “The musical allegory and its relevance to my work is nowhere more apparent than in my illustrations for the picture books of Ruth Krauss,” Sendak said in his essay, The Shape of Music. “Her lovely and original poetry has a flexibility that allowed me the maximum space to execute my fantasy variations on a Kraussian theme, and to pursue my devotion to the matter of music.”³ Kuskin’s poetry is not as original as Krauss’s but allows Simont a similar freedom. His imaginatively choreographed drawings are animated snapshots, spare yet saturated, with a winning blend of energy and humor that children delight in.

The book was well received by readers and critics. It won many prizes, including the National Book Award, and was featured on the popular television show “Reading Rainbow.” Sadly, despite its popularity, it’s now out of print.

The opening spread is my favorite. Like an orchestral prelude, it’s a small scene that sets the mood before the curtain lifts:

“It’s almost Friday night. Outside, the dark is getting darker and the cold is getting colder. Inside, lights are coming on in houses and apartment buildings. And here and there, uptown and downtown and across the bridges of the city, one hundred and five people are getting dressed to go to work.”

Listen to me read it aloud:

Simont’s full-spread illustration of a city skyscraper silhouette set against a pale red sky at dusk is thrillingly evocative. And those four sentences are perhaps Kuskin’s best ever. The anticipatory “almost,” and description of the “dark getting darker” and the “cold getting colder,” are unexpected, and yet, you know exactly what she means. And her use of assonance—where the vowel sound repeats—is satisfying to the ear. For example, the repetitive ‘i’ sounds.

Short ‘i’: it’s / is / building / bridges / city
Long ‘i’: Friday / outside/ night / inside/ lights / five

Plus, 105 people are getting ready to go to work on a Friday night when it’s cold and dark?! Who are these people? Kids are eager to turn the page to find out.

They find out these people are naked!—something many adults are uncomfortable with in children’s books, but kids love! Though this book is so subtle and funny about it, I don’t think it’s ever been an issue. (As far as I know, it’s never been banned.) Kids study Simont’s characters, with their different skin tones, sizes, ages, and habits. Maybe they relate to reading in the bathtub or singing in the shower, or maybe they laugh, knowing people who do, like Mom and Dad (so embarrassing). Simont’s characters are varied not only in style but in class, with apparent distinctions in transportation (although it could be their personal preference); one hails a cab, another takes the subway (the conductor takes a shiny black limo). Unfortunately, there are only 13 women in the orchestra, but this was the early ‘80s. Things have improved since then, though not nearly enough.

Throughout the series of getting-ready scenes, Kuskin’s text is simple and direct, but her odd, specific details keeps things interesting, “All the men put on black socks. There are short socks and long socks and fancy silk socks that have decorations called clocks.” (Again, repetition and assonance), “Forty-five men stand up to get into their pants. Forty-seven sit down.” “Eight women dress in long black skirts. They wear black tops, sweaters, or blouses. Four women put on long black dresses. And one wears a black jumper over a black shirt.” (Lots of repeating ‘b’ sounds).

“One man”, the conductor, “has wavy black hair streaked with white, like lightning.” In the illustration, he is looking confidently in the mirror, and behind him is a giant self-portrait with the same debonair look—it’s very funny. We also find out that he’s special, no one has a tie or case like his, and he’s the one who gets to hold the fancy stick.

All along we’re learning things about people, fashion, and instruments, sometimes through words, other times through pictures. Finally, at 8:25, they enter the Philharmonic hall and head to the stage. Everyone takes a seat. It’s completely silent as the conductor raises his baton in the air. Then he lowers his baton, and the orchestra “turns black notes on white pages into a symphony,” filling the room with beautiful music.

I agree with Kuskin, picture books should work when read aloud, and also when read silently to oneself, but I don’t think they must. The Philharmonic Gets Dressed is a virtuoso performance, a symphony of words and pictures—reading black notes on white pages silently in your head doesn’t do them justice, they deserve to be heard.

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MORE MOONBOW

Maurice Sendak: The Artist Who Loved Words

What Even Is Children's Literature Criticism & Why Is It Important?

Life Lessons From a Little Bear

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Thank you!

1. Kushkin, Karla. “To Get a Little More of the Picture: Reviewing Picture Books” TheHorn Book. November 29, 2012.

2. Ross Lipson, Eden. “Children’s Books” The New York Times. November 17, 2002.

3. Sendak, Maurice. “The Shape of Music.” Caldecott & Co.: Notes on Words and Pictures. 1988.