This is a simple, inspiring children's biography of the great musician Haydn. This story, like the story of Mozart, will win its way into the hearts of all music loving children; for it, too, is told with all the understanding, sympathy and appreciation that its two inspired authors have to give.

"Little Sepperl (as the child Franz Joseph Haydn was called) always sat on a wooden stool near his father and with two smooth pieces of wood held firmly in his hands, played his own make-believe violin. His parents watched the boy drawing one stick slowly against the other as he played away so seriously, keeping perfect time . . .

Then one day he went with his cousin to a town near Vienna, close by the river Danube. There he learned to read music and sing. Once when the drummer was too sick to march in a procession little Franz was asked to take his place. So he practiced all day on a meal barrel with a cloth tied over the top . . . until he could play the part without making a single mistake. Such was the musical beginning of the boy who later played before kings in palaces, and who has left us some of the most beautiful music ever written.

For boys and girls, this book is particularly recommended. It has the great value of being instructive, cultural and inspiring, as well as recreational.  From the dust jacket