THE ANIMAL BAND IN MY BACK YARD
Henry Mahon
language
(Diadem Books, Dec. 16, 2014)
This tale of an animal musical band will enchant you and captivate your imagination! A young boy in an orphanage loves to play his trombone and, unbeknown to him, the animals in the nearby forest are charmed by his playing. They have formed a band and as it happens they need a trombone player! What is more, the young boy discovers he has a gift to hear and talk to animals—and imagine his surprise when the stray dog that’s always hanging about the kitchen for scraps speaks to him and invites him to join their band! And what a band! You could call it ‘The Animals’! There’s the leader, a cobra snake that wears a long scarf. There’s a lady snake Coral, a mongoose that carries a white chicken (his ‘ready meal’!), a red monkey, a black pig, an armadillo, a skunk and an elephant—and they all make the most beautiful music for the King, the biggest lion you’ve ever seen!About the AuthorHenry Gilbert Mahon spent 25 years in his birth country, Trinidad, and Tobago in the West Indies. He spent 13 years in an orphanage—the Belmont Orphanage in Trinidad. Practising 2 or 3 hours a day on his trombone every day in the bushes in their back yard inspired this magical tale—for one day while practicing he saw, in his mind’s eye, seven animals sitting in a circle with smiles on their faces enjoying his music.
