My first thought about doing an article about story books in song was, "Great, this will be so easy. There are so many I can include." My second thought a few days later was, "Great, there are too many to include."
Singing along to the words in a story and looking at the pictures is fun and makes the story more memorable. I've always enjoyed stories that I can sing to, and children do love to sing. You don't have to be Marc Anthony or Adele to sing along to a story. Trust me, Adele I am not.
Here are some really good ones for Grade 1 student and younger:
We All Go Traveling (Sheena Roberts)
A Rhyming I-spy journey to school through various landscapes is the perfect introduction to colours, modes of transport, and of course, music. With the jaunty text, Siobhan Bell's colourful illustrations and the accompanying music CD by popular singer Fred Penner are sure to get children singing along happily. Also includes sheet music.
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (Sophie Fatus)
In this story you also can sing along with a CD featuring Fred Penner as you follow four children from different countries, each going through their early morning routine and getting ready for school. This is a great multicultural story, too. It also includes sheet music.
If You're Happy and You Know It (Jane Cabrera)
In Cabrera's version of the popular children's song, various animals demonstrate the motions for the many verses. Monkey claps his hands, Elephant stamps his feet, while Giraffe nods his head. Concluding pages have a Hollywood Square-type montage of all nine animals who cry at once, "If you're happy and you know it, shoutWe are!" Cheerful, colourful illustrations enhance the happy mood of the song. Also great is Ten In The Bed by the same author.
Down by the Station (Susan Vetter)
Little fans of trucks and trains and boats and planes will love to sing this action-packed version of the classic rhyme, paired with Frank Remkiewicz's happy, colourful illustrations. Children who love things that go will be thrilled with the vehicles included here: school bus, tractor-trailer, excavator, jumbo jet, sailboat, racecar, fire engine and rocket. The ending is a good segue to bedtime as the train returns to the station and several sleepyheads head to bed.
Caldecott medalist Paul O. Zelinsky created The Wheels on the Bus, an incomparable moving parts picture book that has the bonus of being a song as well. Almost a million young readers have enjoyed the wheels that go round, doors that open and shut, and people who go bumpety-bump. Includes sheet music.
If you take the storybooks in song concept one step farther, you can substitute an instrument for the storybook and keep the child singing along.
I'm just getting into this having started the guitar and I love it. I can play This Old Man on the guitar and my daughter belts out the words for me. It's awesome! She's going to get sick of this song very quickly though so I had better work on my second song. Children love music and seeing someone play any instrument is memorable. Many storybooks in song have the sheet music with chords included in the book. Happy singing!
Check out this great website for children's songs: http://www.storytimesongs.com/Newsletter.html, and of course, always ask your local library staff for more great suggestions.
Helena Ashcroft Loberg is a library technician with the Terry Fox Library.
