Estimated reading time 5 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Do you need to buy a music gift for a young pianist? This post is about books that are fun – that’ll make good music gifts – not lesson books. Lesson books are important, but they’re not as fun as songbooks. Piano sheet music makes great birthday and holiday gifts. Keep reading to see the top 100 kids’ piano sheet music gifts.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission from purchases made through the links. I’ll only recommend products I use, use in lessons, or ones my students or colleagues have recommended.
The Top 100 Kids’ Piano Sheet Music Gifts: Generation Alpha
- We’re not considering Generation Beta yet.
- Since the first Gen Beta kids were born in 2025, they still need to learn to talk before they can start taking piano lessons!
The songbooks in this post are geared toward kids in Gen Alpha (2012 to 2024).
- The post The Top 50 Best Pop Sheet Music Gift Ideas was aimed at Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z.
- I cut that post off at Gen Z, because the youngest Gen Z kid would be around 13 years old. Assuming these kids aren’t beginners, they’ll be able to handle pop music arrangements.
- However, most Gen Alpha kids won’t be ready to play pop music arrangements. Why?
Learn-to-read vs read-to-learn.
- When kids learn to read books in school, they have a learn-to-read stage and a read-to-learn stage.
- This means that the kids in the learn-to-read stage will have graded reading books that are appropriate to their school grade level.
- However, around 3rd or 4th grade students get a good enough handle on reading that they can start to use reading to learn their other subjects, thus read-to-learn.
- Likewise, the kids in Gen Alpha are young enough that they’re still in the piano lesson equivalent of the learn-to-read stage.
- This means that they’re learning from graded piano method books and will need specially graded fun songbooks.
- Therefore, the books in The Top 50 Best Pop Sheet Music Gift Ideas would be too hard for all but the oldest Gen Alpha students.
- Yes, some older Gen Alpha will be ready for The Top 50 Best Pop Sheet Music Gift Ideas, but most will need the graded fun books.
What’s an easy songbook?
- When piano songbook covers claim that the music is easy, most of them lie through their figurative teeth.
- If they’d said that, “… well no, actually this is late beginner/early intermediate…” then you wouldn’t buy the book.
- They misrepresent the level of difficulty, because they want your money.
- For kids who are still learning to read music, you need to know where they’re at in their development, so you can get them songbooks that are age appropriate.
- Why is this important? If the music is too hard it can lead them to quit piano. However, if it’s too easy, they’ll get bored. So, we need to find music that is just the right level of difficulty.
I’m here to help guide you through the process of getting the right songbook.
The Top 100 Kids’ Piano Sheet Music Gifts: Faber Piano Adventures
The supplemental books to Faber’s Piano Adventures are my go-to fun books for students.
- They’re graded, so you need to find out which Faber Piano Adventures book your gift recipient is in and match that level with the appropriate fun book series level.
- This even works reasonably well if the piano student is in Alfred’s Basic Piano Library, because Alfreds lesson book levels roughly match the Piano Adventures lesson book levels. (Alfreds and Piano Adventures are two of the most popular piano method books.)
- For example, you’ll use the PreTime® Piano books with the Piano Adventures primer level or Alfred level 1A (or Prep Course A & B). Likewise, you’ll use the PlayTime® Piano books with Piano Adventures level 1 or Alfred level 1B, and so on.
Faber Piano Adventures Fun Book List (Multiple Levels in Each)
Faber Disney
These books have songs from Walt Disney movies. Kids love ‘em. ‘Nuf said. (Click the individual links to find out what songs each book has.)
Faber Favorites
After the Disney books, the Favorites books are the most popular among my students. They contain a lot of the traditional kids’ songs (e.g., Pop Goes the Weasel, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain).
Faber Kids’ Songs
The Kids’ Songs books are similar to the Favorites books but have more contemporary kids’ songs (e.g., C is for Cookie and Bob the Builder).
Faber Popular
The Popular books have music from movies (e.g., Star Wars, Do Re Mi, and Harry Potter) and popular songs (e.g., Puff the Magic Dragon, This Land is Your Land, and the Jackson 5’s ABC).
Faber Hits
The Hits books contain more contemporary music than the Popular books. The Hits books have artists such as: Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, Shakira (Zootopia), Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Adele, and Taylor Swift. Because of the difficulty of the material, there are no PreTime® or PlayTime® books.
Faber Rock n’ Roll
The oldies Rock ‘n Roll books are a lot of fun. However, the Pretime book’s melodies are so simplified that they don’t really sound like rock ‘n roll. On the other hand, the kids are too young to know the difference, so it doesn’t really matter – they just like that the title say rock n’ roll. All the other books capture the spirit of the rock songs.
Faber Jazz & Blues
Everything I just said about the Rock ‘n Roll books can also be applied to the Jazz & Blues books.
Faber Christmas
When we reach the holidays, the young kids get so stoked when they realize they’ll be able to play Christmas songs. However, it’s not just limited to young kids. Everybody loves Christmas music at the holidays!
Faber Classics
The Classics books give a good introduction to classical music.
Hymns
For those kids who want to play church songs, here are the Hymns books.
The Top 100 Kids’ Piano Sheet Music Gifts: Super Easy Songbooks
The Super Easy Songbooks are good if the kid *must* learn pop songs.
- Also, these books are better than the Piano Adventures books if you want to be able to get a songbook that focuses on one artist or if the student is a late beginner.
- However, unlike the Faber books, these books aren’t graded, so it’s a little harder to match playing level with material.
- Despite the name of the series, you can’t have a newbie beginner play these books.
- You’ll probably need to wait until a kid is in Alred’s lesson book level 1B or level 2, or in ShowTime® (Level 2A) or ChordTime® (Level 2B) in Faber Piano Adventures.
- The books simplify some of the pop melodies. However, they generally do a good job of capturing the essence of the songs.
These are chord approach books.
The Super Easy Songbooks (Alphabetical)
Final Thoughts
Takeaway points:
- The kids in Gen Alpha (2012 to 2024) are young enough that they’re still in the learn-to-read stage of piano lessons.
- This means that they’re learning from graded piano method books and will need specially graded fun songbooks.
- I’m here to help guide you through the process of getting the right book.
Have fun shopping!
Related Posts
- The Top 10 Best Music Souvenir Gifts
- How to Choose the Best Guitar Case for You
- How to Choose the Best Guitar Strings for You
© 2026 Geoffrey Keith
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