Books and music my daughter and I like (and some not so much)

As one who appreciates reading and listening to music, it stands to reason that I have been spending my days introducing my child to the same.  I’ve had a lot of hits and misses with what I’ve shared with Mikayla and I feel some need to share that information for those who have kids of their own (or, I suppose, purchase gifts for other people’s kids).  Mind you, what is henceforth classified as “good” has been deemed as such by a man who has a degree in elementary education with an emphasis in English and his 15-month-old daughter.  Both of our opinions have been given pretty much equal weight in this matter.

There is a lot of great, and not-so-great, stuff out there that we’ve encountered, so this will be the first in a series of posts on the subject.  They may or may not come at you consecutively.

Dr. Seuss
It would be a huge error on my part to not mention “The Good Doctor”, as he’s known around our house, so he’s as good a start as any.  Let’s face it, there’s a reason why his books have all held up to the test of time: Theodore Seuss Geisel is just that good.  The vast majority of his works for children have a catchy cadence and clever rhyme to them.  It’s poetry, and one almost can sing his books.

I should note that I am speaking of his “Beginner Books” series.  These are the catchy ones that everyone in my generation grew up reading, like Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Dr. Seuss’s ABC.  These are the classics that I cut my teeth on, in a reading sense, and could first “read”.  I think, at the time, what I considered to be “reading” was in fact rote memorization of the words in the stories, including exactly when to turn the pages.

Of course, it helps that he’s hardly ever boring, either.  The pictures are fun and colorful, even when he puts on the “Theo Lesieg” moniker and has someone else illustrate (have you picked up Come Over to My House?).  And while the text is simple enough that my daughter will soon be reciting the words along with me, the variety of vocabulary and rich, creative stories make this leaps and bounds beyond the “Dick and Jane” stories he was aiming to combat.  Dr. Seuss, 1. Dick and Jane, 0.

Super Foods for Super Kids
 I can’t say that Mikayla has paged through this book by Annabel Karmel with me, but she’s certainly a fan of it.  When it became apparent that she would soon be needing a little more sustenance than her mother’s milk, we took a cue from the in-laws and went in search of a baby food cookbook instead of piling our shopping cart full of those pricey little jars.  Not only did my wife and I have a desire to know what foods we were putting into her body, along with my own aversion to all those preservatives packed into prepared foods, but I enjoy spending time in the kitchen.  Knives and fire have some sort of appeal to me.

We examined a few books at the store, then came home with this one.  And we couldn’t have been happier.  Karmel doesn’t just cobble together a bunch of recipes, this is an elaborate book spelling out some good ideas on child nutrition.  Recipes are categorized by age, ingredients are described by why they’re good for babies and why babies will like them, and there’s even suggested menus for getting started.  There’s enough variety for all tastes and ideals, too, from pureed beef stews to strictly vegetarian (and even those could easily be done as vegan recipes with little to no modification).  We had ice cube trays (and later freezer baggies filled with cubes) filled with pureed meals, and all we had to do was defrost and warm them for Mikayla.

The book does continue on up to preschool-aged kids, but I am now finding myself starting to abandon the book as my daughter is more interested in eating what my wife and I are having.  I should revisit it, though, for some recipes that could possibly appeal to us adults as well.

Sandra Boynton
Here’s another author that I’ll just put out there as one that you should just go ahead and purchase her entire body of work.  You can put everything on the shelf right next to Dr. Seuss.  Mikayla had received a couple of her small board books, little quick reads featuring cartoon animals like Barnyard Dance and The Going to Bed Book.  But what really made us fall in love with Boynton was her Philadelphia Chickens: A Too-Illogical Zoological Musical Revue.

Boynton teamed up with Michael Ford to retell some of her little books in song under the guise of a soundtrack for a musical.  Take, for instance, The Belly Button Book; the song that the hippos sing in the book is fleshed out as a 80′s pop song-style round.  The music is fun, the pictures in the companion book are the same colorful, cartoony animals that Boynton is known for, sheet music is provided, and she even gets a good collection of stars and semi-stars to contribute to the singing.  The priceless song in the collection is Scott Bakula of “Quantum Leap” and “Star Trek: Enterprise” fame doing his rendition of “Pig Island”.  The nerd in me smiles.

Daddy a Go-Go
Let’s file these guys as ones to avoid.  Their tunes all seem to be variations on the same beach-rock theme, and their lyrics are atrocious and laden with self-depreciation (such as jokes on old age and poor driving).  And there’s the odd song or lyric that just rubs me the wrong way here and there, such as their rendition of the Atlanta Braves’ “Tomahawk Chop” (which does bring back memories of the 1991 World Series, but still…) or the alcohol-related line “they’ll pop a cork in New York” that seems to be not so kid-friendly.  I will concede that they do have a few good songs, but the ones that I actually like are just covers such as the themes from “Scooby Doo” and “Speed Racer” as well as “Snoopy Versus the Red Baron”.  Quite frankly, I could just as well search out the original versions of those songs.

“Cranberry Sauce Flotilla”
This one was a pleasant surprise from the library by a band called Dog On Fleas.  As one who came out of high school with an appreciation for the Squirrel Nut Zippers, just ask anyone who went to the 1998 St. John’s Preparatory School prom and danced to the “Hot” CD on repeat the whole night, and recently found Lucy Michelle & the Velvet Lapels, I love the “old-timey” sound of all three of these bands.  Mix jazz, ragtime, swing, folk, and then some and you have some almost unclassifiable genre of music that can only be described as it makes you feel like you’re cranking up the ol’ Victrola, angling it out the window, grabbing a pitcher of lemonade, and dancing out on the front lawn until dusk.  

Maybe I’m just a sucker for the quirky stuff.  But songs like “You Make Me So Happy” indeed make me happy, and “‘Taint No Sin (To Take Off Your Skin)” (“and dance around in your bones”, as the title line continues in the song) is indeed very danceable.  This stuff is just that much fun, and I’m talking the old-fashioned kind.

Is Your Mama a Llama?
As mentioned with Dr. Suess (everything comes back to him, right?), the kid loves books with a good rhyme.  Guarino’s book doesn’t fail to deliver.  It’s cute, it’s quirky, it’s a board book so Mikayla can sit and flip through it to her heart’s content and the wife and I don’t have to worry about her tearing pages out.  It’s perhaps one of the best random purchases we’ve made since the kid loves “reading” it to herself as well as hearing us read it over and over and over and over again.

The pictures, as you can see by the cover, are realistic and yet friendly.  It’s not the cartoonish rendition of animals that Mikayla is used to, but that’s all right since I wouldn’t mind her getting used to what animals actually look like anyway.  And the story itself is catchy and addicting.  ”‘Is your mama a llama?’ I asked my friend, Dave. ‘No, she is not,’ is the answer Dave gave. ‘She hangs by her feet and she lives in a cave. I do not believe that’s how llamas behave.’”  Catch me sometime and I’ll recite it from memory.

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb
Okay, so I’ll admit that I could have just as well lumped this in with Dr. Seuss since it’s sold under the great, big Suess “Beginner Books” umbrella.  But, come on!  Al Perkins penned a classic here.  It’s monkeys.  And it’s drums.  What more do you need?

Mikayla and I actually sit down with one of her toy drums for this book, and we play along with the rhythms in the book.  Well, I play along with the rhythms, she just smacks that drum like nobody’s business and giggles at all the monkeys.  That, my friends, is good, clean fun.

Dum, diity, dum, ditty, dum dum dum.

Tags: fatherhood, music, reading