Dooby Dooby Moo

The theme of musical animals has a long history from Grimms' Brementown Musicians to Jarrett J. Krosoczka's Punk Farm (check out the Punk Farm website; the music is actually pretty good).

Doreen Cronin creates a winner with Dooby Dooby Moo, illustrated by Betsy Lewin. The characters you first met in Click Clack Moo are here. Farmer Brown keeps a close eye and ear on the animals in his farm, especially that crafty Duck. When he finds an ad cut out of his morning paper, he knows trouble is coming.

The ad is for a talent show at the county fair. First prize is a used trampoline. Though farmer Brown only hears snoring inside the barn, when the coast is clear, cows, sheep, and pigs practice their versions of old favorites. The cows sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star": "Dooby, dooby, dooby moo. Dooby moo, moo, moo, moo, moo." The sheep rehearse "Home on the Range". And the pigs do an interpretive dance.

Farmer Brown doesn't trust the animals on the farm by themselves (remember Giggle, Giggle Quack?), so he packs them in the truck when he goes to the county fair (convenient, no?). He leaves the critters snoring in the truck.

The cows do well. The sheep do even better. But the pigs are fast asleep. Duck steps up and does "Born to be Wild" - "Quack, quack, quack, quuuaaaaaackk!"

Do they win? Well, that when Farmer Brown listens outside the barn door he hears, "Dooby, dooby BOING! Fa la, la, la BOING! Whacka, whacka BOING!"

As always with Cronin, there are hilarious details such as footnotes and disclaimers, mice judging the rehearsals, and Farmer Brown wearing a disquise. If you're building a collection of the books in this series like we are, don't forget this one. You can have so much fun belting out the tunes.

Hey Mr. Choo-choo, Where Are You Going?

I think I've mentioned before that Maya's favorite musician so far is Dan Zanes. She loves those acoustic guitar sounds. Dan Zanes does tasteful new songs, children's classics, and traditional songs that I can listen to and enjoy along with Maya.

Our favorite CD is still the one our friend Nicole gave to Maya before she was born, Catch That Train. It has a couple of train songs, classics like "Loch Lomond" and "Welcome Table", a couple of foreign language tunes, and even a protest song. Guests include Father Goose, Nick Cave, Natalie Merchant, and The Blind Boys of Alabama (weren't there five at one time?).

Check out the video for the title track on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWIYo-T4Dq8

Hey Mr. Choo-choo, Where Are You Going?, by Susan Wickberg and illustrated by Yumi Heo, is a great train book with a wonderful tune. Just listen to this:

Hey Mr. Choo-choo,
Red, white, and blue-choo,
Hey Mr. Choo-choo,
What are you doing?

Conductor call-call-calls.
I want to pull-pull-pull.
But I wait-wait-wait
Till my cars are full.

Isn't that great? The arrangement of the text as a whole is thematic. Each set of stanzas, which can take up two or more pages, begins with that first refrain but poses a different question. "What are you pulling?" or "Where are you going?"

I had a bit of trouble with the meter reading it through the first time, but with practice I think I could sing this book as well as read it. The wordplay and repetition are so much fun and feel great on your tongue.

Speaking of YouTube, I've been thinking I'd like to add a video component to this venture. Something like clips of reading stories and singing songs. How about some other ideas? What would be useful or entertaining for all of you?

Bears

At over a year, can you believe Maya still doesn't really take to stuffed animals or dolls. Just puppets really, especially if they make noise. She doesn't have a blankie or stuffed animal she wants to hang onto. Weird, huh?

Bears, by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, is an homage to teddies everywhere. Is has a short, simple text, composed mostly of words and phrases that rhyme with 'bears'. "On the stairs", "Collecting fares", and "Millionaires".

The big draw for Bears is the illustrations. Everybody's favorite monster boy is the main character, and he spies bears everywhere doing everything. There are so many details to point out. You can talk about what individual bears are doing or what expressions do they have on their faces? And there are bears and bear faces to find in unlikely places, such as the lamp, the wallpaper, even the moon.

For babies, Bears is a nice, quick read. For talkers, this is a good book for rhymes. For preschoolers, it's a great sit-and-talk-about-the-pictures book.

Scarlette Beane

Our little garden in our little backyard still looks pretty good after two weeks. We hope it will thrive. Maya loves being out in the yard. And now we can do work while she tools around on her own (We just have to keep one eye open for things being eaten). Patty made a couple of beautiful garden stones in Maya's honor.

Our hope is that Maya will continue to love being outdoors as she grows. The little girl in Scarlette Beane, by Karen Wallace and illustrated by Jon Berkeley, is born with not just a green thumb, but green fingers too. Her parents have a house and yard even smaller than ours.

When Scarlette is five she is given her own garden. After planting her seeds her fingers glow in the night. The next day her vegetables are so big the neighbors have to come with construction vehicles to harvest the crop, and everyone has to eat outside.

That night Scarlette sneaks out to plant more seeds in the meadow. Her fingers glow brightly again. The next day there is a castle made of vegetables, and they move right in.

Maya will of course have her own little garden plot as well someday. But we'll try to keep our expectations reasonable.

Here's a song about a garden worm from What Shall I Do with the Baby-O, by Jane Cobb. She recommends singing it while trying to change the diaper of your little wiggly worm.

Wiggly Woo

There’s a worm at the bottom of my garden.
And his name is Wiggly Woo.
There’s a worm at the bottom of my garden
And all that he can do,
Is wiggle all night,
And wiggle all day,
Whatever else the people do say;
There’s a worm at the bottom of my garden,
And his name is Wiggly, Wig-Wig-Wiggly,
Wig-Wig-Wiggly Woo-oo!

The Hello, Goodbye Window

Maya loves her days with Nana. On those days she gets to play all day, no running boring errands. Most Nana days are at our house, but occasionally Maya gets to visit Grandpa and Nana's house. They have a patio door with a huge window. Maya can look out at the back yard.

The little girl in The Hello, Goodbye Window, by Norton Juster and illustrated by Chris Raschka, has a favorite window at Poppy and Nanna's house. It's the kitchen window overlooking the path to the front door. Since Poppy and Nanna spend most of their time in the kitchen, that's the window where you say "Hello" and "Goodbye".

The text describes an idyllic weekend with Poppy and Nanna. The window is good for playing peek-a-boo and making faces. The kitchen has drawers to explore, a sink for washing hands, and a table for coloring.

When it's dark the window becomes a mirror. When the lights are turned off, a solarium. The next day is filled with fun in the garden, except for nap time because "nothing happens until I get up."

The window is where you can get a first glimpse of visitors, such as a T-rex, the pizza delivery guy, or the Queen of England. Today it happens to be Mom and Dad. Goodbyes are waved through the hello, goodbye window.

The author is Norton Juster, of Phantom Tollbooth fame, so you know the writing is a pleasure to read aloud. The illustrations are quite colorful and eccentric. At first they may seem childish and messy. But a closer look shows why Raschka received a Caldecott for this one. There's quite a bit, so I recommend this book for the early grades.

Leonardo the Terrible Monster

Maya's in that cute stage that I think most kids go through. She likes to be startled. On Wednesdays we go to have lunch with Mom at the hospital and are waiting for the elevator, and Maya jumps and squeals when the doors open and someone steps out. The unsuspecting stranger usually gets a big kick out of that.

Another huge one is opening and closing the garage door. We let Maya press the button. She can't quite bring herself to press it all the way in, but when we help her and the door starts to move, she jumps up and down in our arms and yells, "EEE, EEE, EEE, EEE." It's like she's scared and fascinated all at once. We're hoping this isn't a precursor to a fascination with horror flicks.

The monster in Leonardo the Terrible Monster, by "Your Pal" Mo Willems (gotta' like a guy who names himself that for kids), learns that really scaring people is not only hard, it's not as fun. Leonardo is just no good at scaring people. Frankly, they just think he's cute. He doesn't have "1,642 teeth, like Tony." And he isn't tall or weird.

Desperate, Leonardo decides he needs to "find the most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world and scare the tuna salad out of him." He does research until he finds Sam sitting alone. After he gives his best effort until Sam cries, Leonardo feels he has finally done it.

But Sam isn't scared. He's just upset over his mean big brother (which takes a gushing full page of writing to explain). Leonardo decides that "instead of being a terrible monster, he would become a wonderful friend." Of course part of being a good friend is scaring and chasing.

We once saw a video version of Leonardo with Mo Willems doing the narration. With Sesame Street on his resume, you know it's got to be good. Willems' reading style reminds me of Shel Silverstein. I highly recommend seeking it out. Knuffle Bunny was on there, too.

Big Kid Books I'm Reading

Speaking of monsters, there's a big scary librarian in The Legend of Spud Murphy, by Eion Colfer. I've been trying out some more light-hearted books for the Guys Read book club. This one takes just a couple of hours to read, even for me.

The mother of two mischievous boys decides to take them to the library twice a week for three hours. The librarian, Spud Murphy (so named for shooting kids with a spud gun), is notorious for hating children. She forces them to sit on a carpet in the children's section (one tiny bookcase).

When tested, Spud Murphy expertly throws a book stamp across the room and nails the older brother on the head. Scared into submission, the boys at first pretend to read books, then accidentally start to really read them. Turns out they love books. When they exhaust the children's collection, they go for an adult shelf (in Indiana Jones fashion).

Spud catches them, and at first she is livid. But when she realizes why they disobeyed, she realizes she has strayed from her calling, lets them take home the book (a romance novel-they were desperate), and vows to improve the children's collection.

I was at a training session for book club leaders, and the facilitator was describing some of the extra things he did to make the clubs more fun. I began daydreaming of having a contest to see who could accurately throw a book stamp across a room at a drawing of a boy on big paper. Just then the facilitator switched to talking about discipline. He said, "One hard, fast rule is absolutely no throwing things." Maybe I'm not the right guy for this job.

Baby Knows Best

There are too zoos in the Twin Cities, and Maya and I, thanks to Nana getting a membership for us, went to both of them this week. She liked looking at a few of the animals she saw, but mostly she watched the chipmonks and geese and tried to find pieces of garbage on the ground she could pick up and eat (we really have to keep track of her).

The truth of the matter is well-captured in Baby Knows Best, by Kathy Henderson and illustrated by Brita Granstrom. Despite all the fancy toys she has, what does the baby want to play with? "The front door keys." What better book is there than a crumply, crinkly newspaper? And the best bath toy? "The old bath plug."

Sound familiar? How many times do you get together with other parents and talk about your baby playing with the cardboard box from a new toy? Henderson captures this well.

This is probably a great book to share with older brothers and sisters. Just remind them that they were exactly the same way. Grandma and Grandpa could tell them that you probably were too.