Video: "Mundo Verde/Green World" - Mister G (World Premiere and Interview!)

One of the kids musicians who most successfully employs a bilingual approach in his music is the Massachusetts-based (most of the time) Ben Gundersheimer, or as lots of kids know him, Mister G. Over the course of seven albums, his music's become more complex, taking on the flavor of Latin American sounds and rhythms. Lyrically, he easily moves between English and Spanish (and back... and back again).

On his forthcoming eighth album for kids, Mundo Verde / Green World, Mister G takes those multicultural rhythms and lyrics in service of environmental concerns. All of which could be dull, but watch this new video for the album's title track, filled with a bunch of skilled instrumentalists who happen to be animals and slick kinetic typography, and I'm pretty sure your mood will lift as you bop along. (The illustrator in charge? Marcos Almada Rivero.)

After you watch the video, make sure you scroll down further for a quick, bonus interview with Mister G about the motivation for the album, memories from recording it, and more about his upcoming book series with Penguin Random House!

Mundo Verde / Green World (the album) is out September 15, 2017.

Mister G - "Mundo Verde/Green World" [YouTube]

Zooglobble: What motivated you to make a “green”-themed album now?

Mister G: Mundo Verde/Green World is my eighth album for children and families, but I've been writing about nature and eco-activism from the beginning. My first CD actually had several songs with explicit environmental themes ("Don't Waste Stuff" "Mister Chubby Pants" "Squirrels"). To me, there is no issue more important than working together to protect this one and only planet we share. Now more than ever, I think it's important that we inspire kids and families to enjoy the beauty of nature, but also to do all we can to insure a healthy green world for future generations.

Any favorite memories from the recording process?

That's a tough one! I was incredibly fortunate to record with so many phenomenal Latin musicians all over the world on this project. If I had to pick one experience, it would be recording the song "Gozar/Enjoy" in the Dominican Republic with the great merengue band, 440. It was an unforgettable experience to work with these great artists (and wonderful people) in their studio in Santo Domingo.

How do you pick animators for your videos?

We love working with our talented friends from different parts of the world. Many of our videos ("The Bossy E", "Cocodrilo", "Siete Elefantes") have been done by a great husband/wife team of Argentinians who are based in Barcelona. The "Mundo Verde/Green World" video was made by our friends in Oaxaca, Mexico. The illustrator, Marcos Almada Rivero, created the beautiful art for our last two albums, "Los Animales" and "Mundo Verde/Green World."

What can we expect from the books you’re creating?

The books we have coming out through Penguin Random House are based on my songs. In each case, I adapted the original song and created more of a narrative. The first book, "Señorita Mariposa," is about a monarch butterfly who is flying from the US to her winter home in the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico. Happy to announce that Marcos Almada Rivero is illustrating the book!

Books for Graduates (Books Featuring Graduation Speeches)

I can really only remember two graduation speeches in my life: my own at my high school graduation, and Ted Turner's at my college graduation.

Believe me, I'm not bragging when I say that I think my own was the better of the two.

I'm not suggesting that mine was good, mind you -- it was well-structured, generally grammatically correct, and included a semi-funny line or two -- but I sincerely doubt anyone in attendance remembers the substance of my speech. (They might remember that I delivered it two separate times about an hour apart, but that's an entirely different story.)

But Turner's -- that one was awful. Even twenty years later, his brief, rambling, speech is remembered as being the opposite of inspiring.

At some point a few years back, I became slightly interested in graduation speeches turned into books. I think the inspiration was probably David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water" speech delivered at Kenyon College in 2005, which was subsequently turned into a book, quite possibly the first example of a single graduation speech turned into a book, or at least a 21st century speech. (More on the Wallace book below.) So I picked up one or two copies of books inspired by graduation speeches each year, and now I'm here with an entire post worth of them. And since many of the children who were the first "readers" of the site -- or at least the beneficiaries -- are reaching graduation age, at least on the high school level, I thought it'd be a good time to compile some thoughts in that regard.

Now, I'm not obsessed with graduation speeches, so I encourage those of you who are to spend several hours (or days) among the speeches collected by NPR, or even longer reviewing the speeches at Graduation Wisdom, which I have come to think of as the Zooglobble for graduation speeches. (Maybe it's the other way around.)

But if I had one simple observation from reading the books I'll discuss below is that graduation speeches can be basically grouped into 2 types: those that suggest what to do, and those that suggest how to be (or think). There's nothing that particularly makes one approach better than the other, but I think it's fair to say that during the more than a decade of running this site, when it comes to kids music, I have a preference for being over doing, for songs that suggest a way of moving through the world and interacting with others rather than lessons to be learned (especially in concrete tasks). Again, it's personal preference, but I think that preference applies to these books as well. I think the advice on how to be is much more likely to be remembered down the line than advice on what to do.

For each book I've provided some details, a brief thesis statement, its applicability to high school students, and some comments. I would note that sometimes what might make for a good speech delivered in person might not make for as engrossing an experience when read in a book several years later and disconnected from the personal experience. As many fans of music can attest, the live experience can be substantially different from the recorded experience, and that, I'm guessing, goes for graduation speeches as well. (I've also provided an Amazon affiliate link in case any of the comments inspire you to purchase a copy for your own family or neighborhood graduate-to-be.)

Without further ado then, let's jump in.

(Last updated May 2018)

Book: Very Good Lives (The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination)

Author: J. K. Rowling

Thesis: Failure helps you know your strengths; imagination lets you empathize with others.

OK for high schoolers?: Yes

Comments: Rowling is, by an order of magnitude, the most famous author on this list. When she makes indirect references to Harry Potter, she makes them secure in the knowledge that the vast majority of her audience (Harvard in 2008, and the rest of the world) will catch them. (In person, I suspect those lines went over great, while they feel a little cheesy on the page.) Rowling doesn't romanticize the days before she sold a kajillion books, but level-headedly draws upon her early experiences during and after graduating from college to draw a couple lessons that probably are especially important for her privileged and successful-thus-far Harvard audience, but are important for any young person moving on to a new stage in life. The book design by Chip Kidd, featuring illustrations that complement the text, is also a plus. [Watch here, Amazon]

Book: Neil Gaiman's "Make Good Art" Speech

Author: Neil Gaiman

Thesis: Make good art.

OK for high schoolers?: Sure.

Comments: OK, there's more to it than that ("Make good art"), but there's nothing else particularly pithy to say as he has a list of items ("First of all: When you start out on a career in the arts you have no idea what you are doing. This is great."). Gaiman gave this speech to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2012, and while there's nothing I would disagree with in terms of the content (it dances on the edge between "what to do" and "how to be"), there's also nothing that is all that memorable either. Except for the book design, which is also by Chip Kidd, and boy, is it memorable, but mostly for being actively unreadable. It's hard to describe it other than the font size, organization, and even type to some extent changes from page to page, making it difficult to read. In the context of Gaiman's words, Kidd's design choices feel true to Gaiman's spirit, but it's an off-putting experience. [Watch here, Amazon]

Book: Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life... and Maybe the World

Author: Admiral William H. McRaven

Thesis: Make your bed (and 9 other things)

OK for high schoolers?: Sure.

Comments: Making your bed is the first of 10 items the retired admiral (who until this month served as chancellor of the University of Texas system) lists. The book is based on the commencement speech McRaven gave in May 2014 to the University of Texas at Austin. That speech is reprinted at the back of the book, and in its brevity I think it is more persuasive. (It may be more persuasive still if you watch the original speech, which Admiral McRaven gave in his Navy uniform.) In the expanded form, McRaven provides additional stories from his military days, and while there's no doubt that the lessons McRaven learned while in SEAL training aided him well and are generally worth sharing and hearing, they're not all "small" (e.g., "Dare Greatly," "Stand Up to the Bullies"). Also, one of the key stories in the book is McRaven's retelling of a horrific skydiving accident he suffered, which led me to cringe -- probably not a response a gift-giver is seeking. There is most definitely an audience for this book, but I read this the same time I read Lauren Graham's book below and I thought that the Venn diagram overlap for those two books was virtually nil. [Watch here, Amazon]

Book: If This Isn't Nice, What Is?

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Thesis: Too many to summarize

OK for high schoolers?: Only for the most literary-obsessed ones.

Comments: Vonnegut is probably the most well-regarded author on this list, but the speeches collected here, while letting his warm, humanist values shine, feel barely edited -- they are the ones which feel most like a speech, not a tightly-written essay. They are predominantly comments and observations on the world around him rather than guidance to the listener. And some of the advice that does make it through -- the title comes from a comment by his Uncle Alex, who would often pause to appreciate the small moments by saying "If This Isn't Nice, What Is?" -- is frankly diminished in book form by being repeated in multiple speeches. Vonnegut is an essential author to read, but I don't think this particular book makes for the best gift to most graduates. [Amazon]

10 1/2 Things No Commencement Speaker... cover

Book: 10 1/2 Things No Commencement Speaker Ever Said

Author: Charles Wheelan

Thesis: Don't do everything just because a path has been set up for you.

OK for high schoolers?: Yes.. maybe.. parts?

Comments: Wheelan delivered a brief speech at Darmouth College's 2011 Class Day (the day before graduation). His speech was titled "Five Things...," so this book is an expanded experience in multiple ways. This book might be the worst offender, as it were, of providing good advice at the wrong time. "Take time off," reads item #7, and he suggests taking a year off before going to a new job post-college (or college post-high school). Mid-May or early June is a lousy time to hear such advice, useful as it may be. Some of the advice (Number 6.5: "Read obituaries") is quirkier than you'll typically read in these sorts of things -- the book title isn't entirely wrong. This isn't my favorite book on the list, but among the more "do"-oriented books here, it's probably the most useful in getting the reader to think. [Amazon]

Book: You Are Not Special

Author: David McCullough, Jr.

Thesis: You don't need to be perfect.

OK for high schoolers?: Yes, of course (see below)

Comments: Of all the books here, one of just two that grew out of a high school graduation speech. David McCullough, Jr., a high school teacher and son of well-known author David McCullough, gave the commencement speech at the school at which he teaches (Wellesley High School in Massachusetts) in 2012. For some unknown reason, the speech went viral (I guess it's always a little unknown why things go viral). Two years later he published a full-length book inspired by his speech (found here at the very end of the book). I found the ideas (more "do" than "be" in nature) perfectly reasonable -- do things for the satisfaction it brings not to impress others, the achievement rat race is exactly that, work hard -- but the format hard to read. I found the text a little rambling, and the audience seemed to shift from high schoolers to teachers to parents, and the blanket assumptions he makes based on a career of teaching to overachieving families of suburban Boston and Hawaii's rich may sound entirely foreign to other parts of the country. (If you are, however, in one of those types of areas, there may even be some value to reading this book before your graduation day.) The strongest parts of the book, frankly, are where McCullough is simply talking about teaching. It's not a great graduation book, but there's a very interesting book about teaching trying to escape. [Watch here, Amazon]

Book: What Now?

Author: Ann Patchett

Thesis: "What now was never what you think it's going to be..."

OK for high schoolers?: Yes

Comments: There are a lot of warm texts in this list, but to me this is the warmest on the list in terms of love and understanding floating off of the page. The book is a slightly expanded version of her 2006 commencement speech at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College. The speech and book recounts Patchett's less-than-direct route from being in high school and wanting to be a writer to becoming a writer. All that time, she's constantly being asked (or asking herself), "What now?," but she suggests that staying in the present moment -- staring, listening -- is more important than keeping the eyes on the (next) prize. She is clear-eyed but generous in her understanding of her younger self. Chip Kidd designed this book as well, with lots of pictures of paths of one sort or another (we'll put this in the successful design category, making him 2-1 here). Also, the postscript on how she jettisoned her original speech and the value of giving the speech is worth the price of the book. [Amazon]

Now Go Out There (and get curious) cover

Book: Now Go Out There (and Get Curious)

Author: Mary Karr

Thesis: Understanding what scares you will help you see the entire world through clearer eyes.

OK for high schoolers?: Yes, though Mary Karr's life, which she shares a little bit of here, is not for the faint of heart.

Comments: Mary Carr, Syracuse professor and best-selling memoirist and novelist, delivered this speech at Syracuse's 2015 commencement, a couple years after her fellow Syracuse professor and best-selling short story write and novelist George Saunders spoke to the graduating class. (She dedicates this book to him.) Karr makes very clear that life can be difficult and that we're all scared or worried or afflicted in one way or another. ("Don't make the mistake of comparing your twisted-up insides to people's blow-dried outsides," says Karr.) The speech takes a little while to get to the inspirational part, but once it does (along with art by Gregg Kulick that changes, almost imperceptibly at first, from page to page), it builds to a satisfying cumulative impact. Her empathy is a fierce and powerful force. [Watch here, Amazon]

In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It cover

Book: In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It

Author: Lauren Graham

Thesis: Find joy in what you do, not in the end result

OK for high schoolers?: Most definitely.

Comments: The actress Lauren Graham gave the high school graduation address to her alma mater Langley High School in 2017, and unlike most of these speeches, I don't think it went viral at all. But this new (2018) book, what appears to be a slightly enhanced and polished version of the speech featuring the occasional doodle from Graham herself, will be, for many readers, a pleasant gift. It's a nice gift particularly for the high schoolers who are ready to Make Things Happen. Because Graham's thesis, that it's important to find joy in what you're doing, and not in the trappings of fame that may accrue, is important to hear when you're 18. Not everyone gets to be Lorelei Gilmore on a much-loved TV show -- in fact, only Graham got to be Lorelai Gilmore, and even she says, "the 'success' parts of life look good to others, but best parts are actually the simple, daily experiences." [Watch here (sort of), Amazon]

Book: Congratulations, by the way

Author: George Saunders

Thesis: Be kind.

OK for high schoolers?: Yes

Comments: "Accomplishment is unreliable," Saunders says in his 2013 commencement speech at Syracuse, and in this brief volume, he builds a brief but eloquent case for a focus on being kind as something that continues to provide (internal) benefits throughout life in a way that trying to be successful doesn't always. (See statement above re: accomplishment.) Saunders begins the speech with an anecdote about a failure of kindness from him in seventh grade that he clearly still thinks about, and it's probably the single most powerful personal anecdote in this entire collection of many personal anecdotes. Chelsea Cardinal's art has echoes that of Gregg Kulick's for Mary Karr's book (or, rather, the other way around, since this book was published first), and it's probably the best match of text and art in this list of books. This is a moving book, and I like it very much. [Watch here, Amazon]

Book: This Is Water

Author: David Foster Wallace

Thesis: You get to decide what has meaning, and what doesn't.

OK for high schoolers?: Yes, though I think the points will matter more to a college crowd.

Comments: And so we come to really the ur-text for this whole small genre of books, the book that essentially kicked off the modern 20th century rush (comparatively speaking) of books based on graduation speeches. (It's sort of like how people made music for kids before Raffi came along, but Singable Songs for the Very Young literally created the kids music category in stores.) The popularity of Wallace's 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College may be due in part to Wallace's cult status as author, including fans trying to reconcile the fact that he talks about how to live a life that's not soul-killing with the fact that he committed suicide. (Note: I'm not saying in any way that's a worthwhile question or makes Wallace's words any less valuable.)

But for me, someone who really is pretty neutral on Wallace as an author, the speech works precisely because it doesn't talk a lot about success or life hacks. It talks about how life can be difficult and routine at various points, and how you choose to look at life is, Wallace argues, the very point of the education that his audience is completing. This is the book I've thought most about since first reading, and I think that most recipients, if they keep the book as they move throughout their lives and the country, will find re-reading it most worthwhile. [Listen here, Amazon]

Book: How To Worry Less About Money

Author: John Armstrong

Thesis: Spend less time worrying about money, more time figuring out what we need

OK for high schoolers?: Yes, though given its writing style and topic, college graduates will probably be a more receptive audience

Comments: I had thought about including Dr. Seuss' Oh, The Places You'll Go! as a bonus book on this list, as a book that's often given at graduations. But I've never actually read the thing. So instead my bonus book is this book, part of a series from The School of Life, a London-based group dedicated to building emotional intelligence. Their main series of books take a philosophical approach to "How To" questions, providing not so much self-help as self-maintenance. The books, which are of generally, if variably, good quality, are essentially philosophy books grappling with issues of direct relevance in fairly down-to-earth language.

This book might be my favorite of the half-dozen or so I've read, mostly because it builds its case slowly and steadily until you realize that money problems aren't really problems about money, they're problems with lack of clarity of what someone really wants from life. And while there are parts that seem like they're written for a 45-year-old suburban London resident whose million-pound flat isn't as nice as his co-worker's two-million-pound flat, I think there's enough in here about more universal concerns that I think a 22-year-old trying to figure out how to do what she loves while earning enough money to go through life would find it useful. It doesn't provide "the answer," but helps the reader a little bit in figuring out the answer for themselves. [Amazon]

What Is Music? Let Christian Robinson and Some Kids Tell You

I stumbled across the video below recently, and I was completely charmed, both by the voices of kids but also -- and probably even more -- by the animation from Christian Robinson. He uses a variety of styles to accompany the voices of kids answering the question "What is music?" and other musical inquiries -- pen-and-ink (there's a touch of Ed Emberley there), stop-motion cutouts, photograph-and-drawing mashups. Sure there's humor in the kids' occasional off-balance response -- "My favorite kind of jazz is... Michael Jackson" says one boy with a well-placed dramatic pause -- but the animation is made with heart.

Robinson graduated from CalArts in 2008 (his "Dinosaur Song" from that year is worth checking out as another winning meld of subject matter and varied animation styles) and over the past nine years he has, not surprisingly, had an impressive set of authors to illustrate for: Margaret Wise Brown, Mac Barnett, and Matt de la Pena for Last Stop on Market Street, for which de la Pena won the Newbery Award and Robinson a Caldecott Honor. And, to bring it back to kindie for the moment, he also illustrated Justin Roberts' The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade.

But all that was in the future when Robinson made this video. It's charming and worth your time.

Christian Robinson - "What Is Music?" [Vimeo]

Review: Rise Again Songbook - Peter Blood and Annie Patterson (editors)

Can singing together change the world?

On its surface, the answer is "no," but the act of singing together produces a lot of other changes that might nudge the world into a better place, particularly in how we deal with people we meet.

No doubt Peter Blood and Annie Patterson, the editors behind the Rise Again Songbook, strongly agree. Musicians and songleaders, the two of them in 1988 edited and published through Sing Out! magazine Rise Up Singing, a collection of 1,200 songs. (The fact that no less than Pete Seeger wrote the introduction was a leading indicator of the book's acceptance in the folksinging world.)

Now the pair are back with Rise Again: A Group Singing Songbook, a sequel featuring another nearly 1,200 songs for singing alone or (presumably preferably in the eyes of editors) with others. The late Pete Seeger contributed a preface this time around and Billy Bragg the foreword. Assuming three minutes per song, that's another 60 hours or so of singing. (Better bring your throat lozenges.)

We purchased the original Rise Again (the 15th Anniversary Edition) more than a decade ago, and while I can't say that it's led to nightly rounds with the family, neighbors, or strangers passing by on the street, we do dip into it occasionally. So while I don't know if I'm the followup's primary audience, I'm certainly more predisposed than the average American to find value in Rise Again.

The basic structure of both books is to include lyrics and chord changes, along with some basic songwriting credit and recording history, but not to include melodic notes. (You can see part of a sample page here.) This is an eminently reasonable decision -- only a small percentage of the population can actually read music, and if you're trying to choose songs to sing, you're probably going to gravitate to familiar melodies for which you don't need the music. It does mean that folks like me (who can read music) who love exploring unfamiliar songs need to turn to Spotify, YouTube, the CDs by Patterson and Blood featuring basic melodies, or the public library to learn the songs, but that means turning away from the pleasures of diving into the book. (But again, I'm probably in the minority here.)

In both books, the songs are organized by theme. Some themes are fairly obvious and well-defined -- "Faith," "Seas & Sailors," "Travelin'" -- while others are a bit more nebulous (and also reflect the desire for social justice that in part was the animating impulse behind these books), such as "Earthcare," "Peace," and "Struggle." (There are also sections specifically for kids under age 8 and lullabies.) While it's possible that a reader could find a song of interest thumbing through individual sections, or guess in which section a particular song might nestle, they're far more likely to use the Titles index in the back.

Because readers are likely to turn to these books to sing familiar tunes, the differences Rise Again has compared to its predecessor are not insignificant. I haven't done a statistical analysis -- it would take some time to tally up the results from 2,400 songs -- but it feels like I know considerably more songs in Rise Up Singing than in the new book. There are more public domain songs, more songs that have been around for generations, centuries even. The comparative lack of familiar songs isn't a problem in and of itself, but for me there are just fewer familiar songs.

On the flip side, however, Rise Again features way more contemporary artists than the original book did, and not just because the original book came out in 1988. Here's a partial list of artists just from the first page of the Artist Index in Rise Again who aren't in the equivalent index in the 1988 book: Adele, Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem, The Avett Brothers, The Band, Billy Bragg, Garth Brooks, Jackson Browne, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Johnny Cash, Tracy Chapman, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Cliff, Bruce Cockburn, and Coldplay. I'm not going to recognize every song by those artists, either, but that's indicative of a book that's trying to reach a broad audience that might not necessarily have copies of Peter, Paul & Mary albums in their iPhones.

(As an aside, there are also some familiar kids music names -- besides daisy mayhem, familiar names like Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Bill Harley, Peter Alsop, Jay Mankita, John McCutcheon, The Nields, and Barry Louis Polisar appear in the book.)

A couple technical comments, one positive, one a suggestion for improvement. First, the positive: these are spiral-bound books, which aids greatly in its use -- it lays flat anywhere, and you can even fold it around so you only see one page. The suggestion for improvement? Add a ukulele chord chart to go along with the guitar chord chart on the last page. The ukulele is an incredible sing-along instrument, and deserves to be a part of this book as much as the guitar.

So would I recommend Rise Again? From a sheer familiarity standpoint, I'd probably recommend Rise Up Singing before this new book as I think that even with another quarter-century's worth of songs included in Rise Again, for most folks I think they'll find the original has more songs they'll be able to sing. But there are certainly enough songs that have seeped into the national consciousness in this new book that it'd keep your family occupied for months if not years to come. And hopefully it's not too much to ask that this be an ongoing project, that this become a trilogy another quarter century from now. I'd definitely recommend Rise Again as I do think in its small way it could change the world, one singalong at a time.

Note: I was given a copy for possible review.

Review: Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over - Hilary Grist

Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over cover

It didn't occur to me until I sat down to write this review, but the label that has released the biggest, most diverse set of original music for kids and families over the past several years is a book publisher: Montreal-based The Secret Mountain. They've released 23 albums over the past decade and more -- some totally in French (as would befit a publisher based in Montreal), some in English, some in languages from around the world. Their book/CD collections have featured lullabies, folk music from around the world, even a couple books from the longtime kids musicians Trout Fishing in America. And while some of the albums are re-releases of albums, dressed up with the accompanying book, many (like the Trout Fishing) albums are entirely new.

The 23rd and latest album from The Secret Mountain is a book/CD titled Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over, a "Bedtime Story and Dream Songs" collection from Vancouver-based musician Hilary Grist. In both its music and its accompanying pictures, it is to my mind the most modern- looking and sounding release from TSM. Grist has four folk-alt-pop albums for adults under her belt, and this new album sees her turn her attention to that most unconditional of love songs, the lullaby. The title track is one of the most gorgeous songs you'll hear all year, for kids or not. Its message of dropping worries, that tomorrow is, well, a chance to start over, is reassuring for sleepyheads of all ages, and Grist's vocals are somehow soaring without being totally inappropriate for a sleepytime disk.

With the exception of "Cradle Song," a reworking of Brahms' Lullaby, which concludes the album, the rest of the songs are original lullabies. Some of them like "Fall in My Loving Arms" and "I'll Be There sound as if they might have been originally written for an adult audience (though not inappropriately so), others ("Say Goodnight" and "City of Green and Blue") feel more kid-centered. Of course, the beauty of many of the best contemporary lullaby albums lies in part in the ability of the singer to pull together different songs to weave an overall mood of unconditional love. And songs like "Float Away," "Le Petit Oiseau," and "Still" help produce that mood. The album starts out a little "loud" for a lullaby album, but by the end, it's all very

The book features an original story about brother and sister Ira and Isabelle, who find themselves struggling to fall asleep and so take a boat far away but instead of finding a Sendak-ian collection of wild things, are greeted by a robin who encourages them to drop their worries and fly. (The theme leads well into the title track.) The siblings' clay characters were created by Grist, and the photographs -- a first for a Secret Mountain book as opposed to illustrations -- a distinctive mixture of collage and tiny models by an artistic team led in part by Grist's husband Mike Southworth. Babies won't appreciate the photographs, perhaps, but their parents certainly will. You can also hear Grist read the story as the album's first track.

I think that most successful lullaby albums work for both the target age range of kids ages 0 through 5 as well as their parents, and by that measure Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over succeeds quite well -- it's a lovely collection of songs, with some memorable images to match. Here's hoping The Secret Mountain continues to bring new artists like Grist into their fold in future years. Definitely recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the book/CD set for possible review.

Video: "Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over" - Hilary Grist

This week sees the release of another dreamtime book/CD collection from Canadian publisher The Secret Mountain, but unlike their last release, the classical "hits" lullaby collection Sleep Softly, this new release is a collection of 21st century folk-pop. It's called Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over, and features songs, a story, and clay characters created by Vancouver musician Hilary Grist.

I'll have a review of the album and book soon, but thought that this video was too lovely not to share first. It's for the title track, a melody featuring Grist's clear voice, which hits gorgeous heights on the chorus. The video features the brother-and-sister clay characters Grist created to illustrate the story. Perhaps you'll see the robin whose voice I think Grist is inspired by in the chorus.

Hilary Grist - "Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over" [YouTube]