As a member of the Homeschool Crew our family received from Zeezok Publishing’s Great Musicians Series, The Young Brahms / Franz Schubert and His Merry Friends Special Offer set which includes both books and the associated study guides as well as a companion CD. I was given this for free in order to provide an honest review of these products.

Before receiving these items we had not done too much with learning about the various composers. I honestly can say we have enjoyed reading these books and going over the study guides as well as listening to the CD.

A typical day for us would be to sit down together as I read a chapter from the book we are currently going through. Each book has 4 chapters so we easily completed each one and learned about each composer. Not only do you learn a little about the life of each composer but the study guide also includes a brief time-line which sets the composers life against other historical events of that time period. Each chapter you read has an associated section for it in the study guide. You first read the time-line then go over questions pertaining to the chapter itself. The answers are also included in the study guide making it easy for you as the parent to lead a discussion. Also there are other tidbits of information that go beyond what it mentioned in the book itself so you learn a little more about the composer as well. Also there is a section which discuses the key character qualities that were displayed by the composer in that section of the book along with the information that supports it including the pages you will find the support discussed. Throughout the book itself, there are several musical scores and the track number printed beside it so that you can stop and listen to the music from the CD. This helps you to fully appreciate the composer you are studying and begin to recognize some of his works. With each CD there are also activities such as word finds that you can print out to accompany your study of each composer. There were some coloring pages by chapter but they were mainly the illustrations from the book and since they included too much black ink we did those pages sparingly.

I felt that this was an excellent series to introduce your child to the various composers. I loved how the book, study guide and CD brought everything together for my kids.

If you are interested please check out the many products that Zeezok Publishing has to offer. You can purchase this set that I reviewed for $35.80 by going here. There are also other sets that you can purchase as well as many other products brought to you by Zeezok.

My fellow Crew Members received various different products from Zeezok and you can check out what they have to say about the various products at our Homeschool Blog here.