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.