When a story meets music: our Book Week collaboration with Amplify

We've absolutely loved this year's Children’s Book Week theme – Symphony of Stories. There have been so many creative interpretations of what this means. One of them, in the words of Matt Ottley, 'just like a symphony blends instruments; stories blend words, feelings and emotions.'

For us here at StoryBox Hub, the theme came to life through The Sound of Picture Books, a series showcasing creativity and a lateral thinking approach to storytelling with narration through music. We didn’t stop there with our mission to bring stories to life this Book Week, and that's why we decided to collaborate with our friends at Amplify Music Education. 

Both StoryBox Hub and Amplify make human-centred, engaging, educational (and Australian!) content for kids. But really, the important part is we love to celebrate the people behind it – the writers, illustrators, composers, musicians, performers, creatives and teachers who take an idea and turn it into something that simply didn’t exist before. 

So we partnered with Amplify to create a special Book Week story release to shine a light on the magic of storytelling, music and the Arts.

The Thing About Dads

Our first collaboration is The Thing About Dads, written by bestselling author Deborah Frenkel and illustrated by award-winning illustrator Daniel Gray-Barnett – a Father's Day title, and a funny, warm look at all the wonderfully ordinary things dads and other significant males do.

Enter our storyteller, Ricky Kradolfer! He is co-founder and host of Amplify's education platform, a music teacher, musician and dad himself. We filmed at Amplify's HQ in Sydney, where Ricky took The Thing About Dads and made it his own.

Deborah's words, Daniel's illustrations, and Ricky's musical energy came together to create the perfect symphony.

Providing the opportunity to experience a story in a multitude of ways is at the heart of what we do here at StoryBox Hub. Read The Thing About Dads together, then watch Ricky bring it to life with his musical talent and creative energy. It's a simple way to show children that stories aren't fixed, and they can be interpreted, performed and reimagined, transforming books into multimodal story experiences. 

More to come

We're not stopping with just one story, though. Our next collaboration with Amplify, Violins and Cellos, is coming to StoryBox early next year, featuring real musicians, and taking the idea of music, storytelling and multimodality even further.

Great story reads don't just appear by chance on the StoryBox platform. They are created by writers, illustrators, musicians, teachers and performers - all of who are to be celebrated!

During Children's Book Week, go and meet Ricky and watch The Thing About Dads on StoryBox Hub (from 26th August) – then let us know what you think.