Ralph's Secret Weapon

As I dig out from the end-of-the-semes­ter crunch, I see that I have start­ed quite a few blog posts in the last cou­ple of months with­out fin­ish­ing any of them. So while I get my act back togeth­er, here’s a repost from a pre­vi­ous incar­na­tion of my site:

Ralph's Secret Weapon by Steven Kellogg

I don’t nor­mal­ly read chil­dren’s books, but Ralph’s Secret Weapon mer­it­ed an excep­tion. The book’s main char­ac­ter is unique (as far as I can tell) amongst char­ac­ters in chil­dren’s books: Ralph plays the bassoon.

I don’t recall exact­ly how I became aware of the exis­tence of this book. I think that it may have been via Google’s rel­a­tive­ly new and won­der­ful Book Search. In any case, once I learned of its exis­tence, I set about try­ing to obtain a copy. Ralph’s Secret Weapon is out of print, but the UW Coop­er­a­tive Chil­dren’s Book Cen­ter owns a copy. A few clicks of the mouse lat­er, I’d arranged for the book to be sent to UW’s Memo­r­i­al Library, where I could eas­i­ly retrieve it.

When the e‑mail mes­sage arrived announc­ing that Kel­log­g’s book was wait­ing for me, I set out for the cir­cu­la­tion desk with an air of antic­i­pa­tion. I retrieved the diminu­tive yet col­or­ful vol­ume and eager­ly set about read­ing it. I was over­joyed to find that Ralph’s bas­soon play­ing is not mere­ly a glossed-over detail; it is a main com­po­nent of the plot. Kel­log­g’s car­toony bas­soon appears in ten out of the twen­ty-sev­en illus­tra­tions (plus the cov­er), with Ralph car­ry­ing the instru­ment in its case in three more. But, as I reached the last page, my utter delight turned to a bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment, and then to a dis­be­liev­ing anger.

You might find your­self won­der­ing “why the sud­den change?” Allow me to pro­vide a sum­ma­ry of the plot:

Ralph is sent off to his aun­t’s house for the sum­mer. His aunt greet him with a cake and a bas­soon. That after­noon, Ralph has his first bas­soon les­son. The teacher tells him that he’s not cut out for the bas­soon, but Ralph’s aunt sees great pos­si­bil­i­ties for him as a snake charmer. She takes Ralph to a snake charm­ing com­pe­ti­tion (coin­ci­den­tal­ly being held in town that very night), which he eas­i­ly wins. Ralph’s Aunt sees greater pos­si­bil­i­ties for him, and calls up the navy, which is being ter­ror­ized by a sea ser­pent. Ralph goes to sea aboard a destroy­er, and starts play­ing his bas­soon. Sure enough, the sea ser­pent is drawn to the sound. But, he eats the bas­soon and grabs Ralph. Luck­i­ly, Ralph has brought along a secret weapon (which turns out to be his aun­t’s cake) that caus­es the ser­pent to regur­gi­tate Ralph, his bas­soon, and a bunch of oth­er peo­ple who’d been recent­ly swal­lowed. Ralph and his aunt return home, where Ralph announces that he’s giv­ing up the bas­soon for­ev­er. His aunt does­n’t object, and Ralph spends the rest of the sum­mer goof­ing off.

Wait.

What?

GIVING UP THE BASSOON FOREVER?

What kind of mes­sage is this send­ing to chil­dren? That music isn’t fun and if you aren’t instant­ly good at it, you should quit and spend your time actu­al­ly hav­ing fun instead? My first read­ing of the book was an extreme­ly fast one, so I took the time to read and look at the illus­tra­tions more close­ly. This only deep­ened my dissatisfaction.

In the illus­tra­tion in which Ralph’s aunt sets him up in her music room, the book she places on the music stand is titled “Drea­ry Drills and Tedious Exer­cis­es for the Bas­soon” (Music is bor­ing!). In Ralph’s first—and only—lesson with Mae­stro Pre­pos­teroso (Musi­cians are ridicu­lous!), the teacher tells Ralph that he has “no tal­ent what­so­ev­er” (Either you’re an instant vir­tu­oso or a no-tal­ent hack! Prac­tice is worth­less!). In the end, Ralph gives up the bas­soon for­ev­er, with no objec­tions or pos­i­tive rein­force­ment from his aunt (If at first you don’t suc­ceed, quit and go play with your dog!).

It’s very dis­ap­point­ing that the lone chil­dren’s book fea­tur­ing the bas­soon con­tains such neg­a­tive mes­sages about the instru­ment specif­i­cal­ly and music in gen­er­al. Shame on you, Mr. Kel­logg. I’m glad that Ralph’s Secret Weapon is out of print—this lim­its the num­ber of young minds it can warp.