A wonderful story teaching our little ones all about the true story of Gaspar Borchardt. He had a dream to create the perfect violin from the most exquisite wood in the world. It is a story about pursuing and following your dreams and believing in yourself. I learned so much from this story. The simple yet creative illustrations create the perfect image to complete the story. Your children will love this story. It will be great to share in an elementary classroom as well. You will love following his story as he creates the most beautiful violin.

The illustrations for this book is simply magnificent and the artist does not waste any space on the pages. Every page is almost completely covered with astounding art. I used to play violin, so I thought the story of how Gaspar ventured through nature and town to find inspiration to design his violin was so touching, especially the description of how he can hear the beauty of sound through different things that he encounter and how he references famous music pieces.

This is also based on a true story, as the author/illustrator of the The Soul of the Violin was inspired by a documentary called The Quest for Tonewood. Beautiful children’s book.

My daughter and I absolutely cherished this story and the pictures on each page. It was wonderfully done! She asked to read it over and over again.

The Soul of the Violin is picture book about Gaspar Borchardt. The art is amazing and I found myself looking at things very closely to find all the details. The text was a bit dense for younger readers, however, so that part did not keep my kids engaged, unfortunately.

Thanks to Cuento de Luz and NetGalley for an eARC of this book for an honest review.

Ever since Sydnee played the violin and I learned of the magic of Lindsey Stirling, I have been obsessed with violin music. This picture book is based on the true story of Gaspar Borchardt who is a violin maker. He sets out to find the perfect tree to make his most beautiful violin. Once he finds the flame maple that he sought, he realized it was too majestic and magical to cut down for a violin. He decided not to cut down the most tree. However, once a flame maple is cut down for other reasons, Borchardt gets the wood he needs! I loved the incorporation of music that was inspired by nature among the plot points. Highly recommend to get little to love and understand how instruments are made and to get them to love and respect music and nature.

This children's book is written in the style of an old folk tale with a rich storyline and beautiful illustrations. It features a young boy who is drawn to music and crafting with wood. He desperately searches for the perfect tree to make the perfect violin. Does he succeed? Being a musician, I enjoyed this tale, but did think that it was a little abrupt at the end. I wanted more! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this free ebook in exchange for an honest review.