Muppets Galore

Just a couple of notes about things going on around New York related to Muppets. The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria is hosting the Jim Henson's Fantastic World exhibit until next January. As explained on the museum's website, the exhibit contains Muppets and material covering everything from his earliest show Sam and Friends through all the films--Muppet movies as well as Dark Crystal--and the well-known television shows: The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and of course Sesame Street, which is filmed next door to the museum. There are evidently demonstrations and lectures on the weekends, but for the next couple weeks Friday afternoons are free, so you can pick which you'd rather have. We'll probably go this Friday.

If you like looking behind the scenes of the Muppets, you can then catch a screening of the new documentary Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey, which premiered at Sundance and is currently showing as part of DocuWeeks in New York and L.A. Directed by Constance Marks, who cut her teeth with the Maysles brothers, and featuring Kevin Clash (aka Elmo), this looks like one of the best looks behind the scenes of Sesame Street we've had; for me it seems more engaging than The World According to Sesame Street from 2005. Maybe it's apples and oranges because of the different emphases of the films, but giving intelligent analysis to the character and phenomenon of Elmo, and the creative personality behind him, seems like a really excellent idea.

Here's a really short teaser:

Here's an interview with the filmmakers:

and with the subject:

Legend of Korra trailer

I neglected to share this a couple weeks ago during Comic-Con when it was released. But since Avatar is by far the most popular show in our home it's a pretty big deal around here. And this new series looks every bit as good as the old one, meaning the whole property won't suffer too much for its feature film misstep.

Doesn't that footbridge look excessively steep?

Party with the Laurie Berkner Band

Last week the Laurie Berkner Band released a brand new DVD-CD combo called Party Day!

My own kids are out of town so I can only give you my grown-up take on it, but I was not disappointed. It has 12 songs, taking viewers along for a costume party, a birthday party, and a pajama party. A group of kids (giving great performances) accompany them along the way, joining in for consistently upbeat songs like "This Hat," "Where is the Cake?," and the mischievous "The Cookie Bakers of the Night."

The DVD is essentially a visual album, a smart move in today's market of online media and decreased DVD and, particularly, CD sales; the great animations on the DVD, coupled with the accompanying five-track CD, give parents a reason to purchase the actual discs, although I don't know if there are plans for an iTunes version down the road.

Like all of Berkner's work, the program seems geared toward the 3-6 crowd, although I expect it should work very well all the way through age eight or even nine; the music certainly does, and I know my seven-year-old, having given up on many other preschool properties, still enjoys this band's segments on Jack's Big Music Show. I'll have to give it a go with her when she gets back from her summer vacation, but my expectation is a lot of dancing and jumping around...

The band consists of Laurie Berkner, Adam Bernstein, Susie Lampert, and Bobby Golden. The DVD was directed by Bil White and produced by his partner Nathalie Renard at Space Cadet Industries. You can check out the album on the band's website.

Here's a YouTube preview of the title track "Party Day":

First graders on transmedia

This is a great post on how first graders define transmedia buzzwords. Can't wait to try with my own first grader.

http://edtechinsight.blogspot.com/2011/06/first-graders-view-of-transmedia-world.html

Enjoy!

Readeez Volume Three

Over the past couple years I've become a fan of Michael Rachap (seen here), father and creator of the musical literacy "Readeez" DVDs. Michael's a musician and father who's put his skills to great use creating these minimally animated--but beautifully designed--videos to teach phonics and sight words around a first grade level (expanding later into things like syntax and math). Now he's just finished volume three in the series, and though I haven't seen it yet I'm excited to do so and can guarantee it'll be full of catchy tunes, great lyrics, and strong curriculum. Check it out (and buy it!) on Readeez' website.

New Teletubbies & In the Night Garden apps

Teletubbies is one of my favorite programs (or favourite programmes) out there for very young children. We used it to introduce Loretta to television when she was old enough, and now I still go back and look at old episodes on my own. I've also recently discovered the joys of In the Night Garden, the follow-up show by the same production company, Ragdoll, in the UK. I've been watching it on the Hub constantly over the past two months and can't think of a better program for the pre-preschool set, the 2-4 year-olds. So if parents have been using these shows to introduce their youngsters to TV (no younger than 2, I hope), then they can now use them to introduce them to their mobile devices. I haven't seen these apps yet, but I expect them to be pretty high quality, given the precedent.

Here's the story by Wendy Goldman Getzler:

Toddlers can now tap into BBC Worldwide’s In the Night Garden and Teletubbies brands on their iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad mobile devices.

Now available on the App Store, Teletubbies: My First App! features the characters from the TV series along with the original music and voices. Developed by EM Studios, the app features age-appropriate games and a dedicated Parent’s Zone that allows parents to customize the app specifically for their children, including length of play and access to other content.

Similarly, Hibernum Creations’ In the Night Garden app immerses fans into the TV series’ fantastical world. Players are able to dance and play counting games alongside characters like the Pontipines and Upsy Daisy.

Now I know that for some Ragdoll's shows can be a little controversial, and there are plenty of parents out there who don't like the Teletubbies. I think they're extremely well designed, but I'd love to hear any other opinions. What can be the merits of new Teletubbies and Night Garden apps?

Who Else Misses Ooh and Aah?

So far so good for Disney Junior here in the U.S. But it's always sad when great host characters have to move on to that big television station in the sky, and the removal of the words "Playhouse Disney" has apparently made Ooh and Aah obsolete--and there aren't even any high quality videos of them online. These puppets were well written, well designed, and with great songs. Congrats on the long run to everyone involved with them.

What other host characters do you miss? Piper O'Possum was awesome. At least she's on Vimeo.

KidScreen 2011 Gets Underway

Today was the first day of the expanded KidScreen Summit for 2011 and I already had several really great meetings. There were no regular sessions today, just day-long master classes for those who paid an additional fee, but that gave those of us who were meeting a chance at finding a seat. I'll start going to sessions tomorrow, of course, and will probably be tweeting with the hashtag #kidscreen11, which is how you can find out about all the goings-on. My twitter name's randyastle, btw.

A note on the show

Just wanted to say Saturday's Milkshake show was everything that was expected--a little bottle of sunshine while it was raining outside. It helped cement my belief that the Just Kidding series is one of the great opportunities for New York families. This Saturday: music of the African diaspora from Heritage OP (Organic Percussion). Check it out.

Just Kidding at Symphony Space

One of the coolest things about living in New York is all the wonderful venues and events going on for youth and families all the time. Symphony Space in the Upper West Side is one of the great continual fountains of such events. Thus far, because of my interest in children's film, I've only attended the New York International Children's Film Festival (this year's tickets just went on sale a few days ago). But this Saturday I'm excited to go to a performance by Milkshake as part of Symphony Space's Just Kidding live event series. I've been vaguely aware of the series for quite a while but have never found out much about it or, obviously, attended, so it's exciting to not only see Milkshake again but tap into one of the best children's concert series in the city.

Of course, calling it a "concert series" is a little myopic, as I found out yesterday when I got to chat with Darren Critz, the performing arts director who curates the entire series. (He's the one on the left, I believe.)

Darren's a really affable guy--and incredibly knowledgeable about children's music, as I found out. He has two main programming dicta that reflect this: the first is that any performers have to be quality musicians (or dancers or thespians), and on top of that quality live performers--they have to not only sound good on their CD but engage kids at the back of a 750-seat hall. His second rule of thumb is that he wants as broad a range of music as possible, from the country sounds of Farmer Jason to pop and rock acts like Milkshake, Recess Monkey, and the Sugar Free Allstars, to, this season, international and native music such as from folk artist Suni Paz, the Thunderbird Dancers (who present an array of Native American dances), and, all the way from Cuba for the first time since 2002, los Munequitos de Matanzas (who will be giving shows for both families and adults sans kids). This array is already striking, and Darren envisions getting more artists from outside the U.S.--as well as just from outside the city--coming in and presenting their work.

Since college I've striven to be eclectic in my musical choices, so I appreciate being able to expose my daughters to such a broad spectrum of live performers this early in their lives. Tweens, it seems, have started to solidify in the type of music they like, and they're hesitant to try anything new. And parents are even worse. So Darren sees the Just Kidding series as an opportunity to expand parents' musical worlds as well as kids'. Parents are more likely to take children to a concert of music that they wouldn't normally listen to just to expose the kids to it--and the upshot is that the parents are exposed as well. One of the best things about the entire series, in fact, is watching parents get into shows and rock out with their children.

That brings me to what I believe is one of the most important purposes of live events--be they music, dance, theater, galleries, picnics, or anything else--they allow for greater interaction between parent and child than more passive (socially constrained) experiences like watching a movie. I wrote about the value of interaction between parents and children in one of my first posts on this blog (it's point #4); suffice it to say here that the type of talent lined up for Just Kidding is exactly what you would want for this type of interaction. And groups like Milkshake are great, as we discovered with our infant last year, because they pack so much more into a performance than just the music. There's such a strong visual component, as Darren pointed out, that they can entertain very, very young children (as well as adults).

Here are some other really cool things I learned about Just Kidding:

* In addition to pushing international performers, future series (which run from October through April generally) will have a stronger component of theater and dance. I'm really pleased about that.

* If you miss a performance or don't live in the city, chances are it will have been recorded and you can catch it online at Symphony Space Live. Note, that's for grown-ups' performances as well as kids', and included discussions and presentations as well as performances.

* Also, there's a lesser known book series that brings literature into the mix. These presentations aren't as frequent as those with musicians, due to publishing dates, author availability, and general book tour issues, but they're definitely worth checking out. (These are generally for 7-11 year-old readers, btw--chapter books and easy novels rather than picture books.) The next one is with Laurie Halse Anderson on March 20, with Lincoln Peirce on April 10. Authors do various things, but they include readings, discussions of their works, and even writing workshops with the kids. There are eight to ten of these a year (and, again, there are adult authors as well).

So there's definitely a lot going on--congratulations to Darren and everyone at Symphony Space for keeping such an outstanding series going for roughly a decade now. As far as this Saturday goes, I'm excited to see Milkshake again; we often listen to their music during breakfast to get my seven-year-old moving in the mornings, and I'm excited that she's excited to see them in person now that she can sing along. That kind of reaction from the kids is what these live events are all about.

New Study on Children's Books and Bookstores

A few days ago Publishers' Weekly had a good article about a new study on youth reading and book-purchasing habits. It's a very interesting short little read, with some expected information and some surprising findings, such as that teenagers rate reading books as their third favorite leisure activity and that over 80% of them don't read ebooks. Interesting.

BAMkids Festival in February

Just a quick note that the schedule for the BAMkids Film Festival in Brooklyn is up and available. It's a great event--looks like an excellent line-up this year--that's happening the first weekend in February. Check it out and if you're at all able it's a great event with shows for kids of all ages.

And speaking of events in New York, check out my post on my other blog about the reopening of the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens; it's a great venue for kids and adults alike, and the new floor space and exhibits will just make it that much better.