Beat, the Bass Drum

Dale Hall

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

While doing chores for an old lady in the village to save money for his own drum kit, Jake, through chance or fate, stumbles across a magical musical miracle that might just make his dream of becoming a professional drummer really happen! But beware, not everyone wants Jake’s dream to come true.

About the Author:
Dale has played drums for many years, through which he has found out that the drums are part of him, almost as if they are playing instead of him. This inspired the stories of Beat, the Bass Drum. Dale is a great ambassador for music and is very passionate about encouraging young children into the universal world of music. Having performed on television, drumming for popular artists, he is aware of the importance of having a good teacher to encourage you, even when you're making slow progress, but still feels luck is the most important ingredient in life.

Review by Chrissi (310516) Rating (8/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 8/10
Beat, the Bass Drum is a story for children and centres on the magical properties of a drum kit. The story opens with a man leaving something at a music shop, it is a drum case and he tells the owner that it is being left for a special person. That special person turns out to be Jake, who is twelve and wants nothing more than to play drums.

He appears to be quite average, although we know that he hates some subjects at school, we do not know if he taps things together pretending to drum, or can pat his head and rub his tummy at the same time. His parents get him drum lessons for his birthday but, in spite of his enthusiasm, his teacher says that he is not that good.

Jake wants to get better at playing the drums and tries to earn money towards his own drum kit, which leads him to getting a lawn cutting and garden tidying job for a lady who lives outside the village, at the end of a lane. He works hard, and finds himself sheltering from the rain in a dilapidated old summer house, which contains some rare treasures. The story is of a simple triumph over a nasty bully and it introduces some very approachable characters who hopefully will go on to have some more exciting adventures together. To balance the good people, we hear of, but do not meet, a person who is nasty and who wants the drum kit for himself and is willing to use other people badly for his own ends.

Having set up the premise, I think that there is great scope for the development of the characters, maybe the individual drums and cymbals have their own stories, or their interaction with people, I do not know, but it is a very original idea and it could develop very nicely.

There are some very nice touches in the book, little asides if you will, such as the parrot and the spider, which show a vivid imagination and which I particularly enjoyed. I have to say that the illustrations are lovely, I especially liked the image of the dragon under the lampshade, and the illustrator deserves great credit for his images which have little details in them which really bring the story to life.
Chrissi (31st May 2016)