In My Neighborhood

The narrator of this story, a drum, wanders the streets of vividly illustrated city inhabited by musical instruments-where even the birds sprout miniature trumpets from their mouths-feeling like an outcast because he alone, among all his family and neighbours, can't play a melody. He adores his violin brother, cello father, and piano mother but feels he has nothing to offer to their music. ""I can't play a tune. There's no music in me. In this city of song I have no melody,"" he laments. But one day a trio of saxophones ask him to join their band, and when they explain why they need him, he suddenly realizes what he is meant to do: ""So that's what a drum does! I now understand. I don't carry a tune; I carry a band."" He must still prove it to himself, and that takes all his courage, but in pounding out his rhythms he finds his identity. ue and palette.