Barry Louis Polisar Tribute Album

I'm leaving for MIP Jr. in a little over a day so I'm definitely feeling the crunch sending emails, writing one-sheets, and all that fun stuff, but I've been remiss in not passing along a press release from none other than children's singer/author Barry Louis Polisar, who's been doing his wonderful thing since about when I was born but who has come to renewed prominence since having his music featured in Juno a couple years ago. 

His work deserves serious attention and analysis, but I'm afraid at the moment all I can do is pass along the notice unedited. I hope that suffices for now because the important news is that this new album is coming out. For those who are truly intrigued please visit www.barrylou.com; on that site you can listen to his music as well. 

So here goes:

"We're Not Kidding: A Tribute to Barry Louis Polisar" to Release this Fall

Children's musician and author Barry Louis Polisar achieved "overnight" success and fame in 2008 when his 30 year old song "All I Want is You" was featured in the opening credits of the film JUNO. Now indie musicians from around the world are coming together on a two-CD album, "We're Not Kidding: A Tribute to Barry Louis Polisar," to be released this fall.

Polisar has performed concerts -- songs for children and smart adults -- at schools and libraries since 1975. Aaron Cohen, lead singer of The Radioactive Chicken Heads, an indie punk rock band from Los Angeles, grew up on Polisar’s music. The group has recorded their own versions of Barry's songs for years. Cohen is putting together recordings of 45 different singers and musicians from around the world doing covers of 60 Polisar songs.

Though originally created as children's songs, Polisar’s music will be played in genres as diverse as hip-hop, folk, jazz and rock. Three totally different versions of "All I Want is You" from JUNO are featured, including one performed in French from a singer from Brittany. There is even a Klezmer version of Barry's song "Don't Put Your Finger Up Your Nose" sung entirely in Yiddish.

A number of the tribute album songs are already posted on Polisar’s web site: http://www.barrylou.com/tributeAlbum.html

"The best part for me," Polisar says, "is that most of these artists had my albums as kids and many claim me as an early influence. I can't begin to tell you what that means to me... and how deeply that touches my soul."

Polisar’s performance of his song during the animated opening of JUNO has reunited him with fans who had his vinyl recordings as kids. The soundtrack to JUNO has sold over a million copies, won a Grammy award, and earned Barry a lifetime achievement award from the Children's Music Web.

For additional information, contact Aaron Cohen or Barry Louis Polisar at . . . Barrylou@Barrylou.com

Milton Meltzer

Milton Meltzer was one of the most important and prolific nonfiction children's authors of the past half century; he died last Saturday, the 19th, at home here in Manhattan; he was a Worcester native, though, and evidently lived and wrote in Massachussets a while as an adult. 

Here are the obituaries from the New York Times, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the School Library Journal. Also, here's a fascinating interview I found about his time as a young writer with the WPA during the Depression (from the website History Matters). This isn't exactly about his later children's writing, but it does show where he came from as a progressive and how and why he chose to write about organized labor, civil rights, and similar topics for children and youth. 

Sergei Mikhalkov

On August 27 Russian poet, children's author, and patriot Sergei Mikhalkov died. He's a figure I admittedly hadn't encountered before, but in surveying his work now it appears he is primarily known for two seemingly divergent strains of work: writing multiple versions of the Soviet national anthem and many books and poems for the children of Russia. His Uncle Styopa character, a policeman designed to instill respect for rule of law, was particularly beloved. Such a terse description makes it sound like another bland foray into socialist realism, but the character and Mikhalkov's verses were apparently quite charming and beloved. If anyone knows about English translations I'd love to hear about it.

Here's the notice I received in my SCBWI online newsletter:

"Sergei Mikhalkov, an author favored by Stalin who wrote the lyrics for the Soviet and Russian national anthems, has died at age 96. In 2005, he received a state award for "literary and social achievements, " personally handed to him by Vladimir Putin.

"Mikhalkov also received numerous state awards for his children's books, film scripts, plays and fiction. He churned out adaptations of Russian and European classics—including Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper"—transforming them according to Politburo-prescribe d ideological recipes.

"Millions of Russians can recite lines from his other famous work—the 1935 children's poem "Uncle Styopa," about an unusually tall police officer—which is still taught in Russian kindergartens and primary schools.

"Mikhalkov's survivors include: his physicist wife Yulia Subbotina, his son Nikita who won an Academy Award for the 1994 film "Burnt by the Sun," his other son Andrei Konchalovsky who has made a career as a Hollywood director and whose films include the Oscar-nominated "Runaway Train," ten grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren."

Here's an obituary from the Daily Telegraph.

Another from the Guardian.

And of course the Moscow News.

New Breakfast Block on Nick Jr. UK

On October 5th at 7 a.m. Greenwich Time Nick Jr. UK will be launching a new block of programming called Wake Up World. This KidScreen article by Emily Claire Afan has all the details, particularly about the two-minute interstitials that will be included with the longer programming. The past two weeks I've been trying to tweak out the appropriate running time for an interstitial with a production company in Wisconsin, so I'd love to be able to see these super-short ones here in the States. Alas, it's not meant to be...but I hope readers/viewers in the United Kingdom enjoy this new block of programmes! 

Chinese Picture Book Awards

Well, first things first. Part of the cause of my most recent hiatus is that Carol had our second child last Friday, September 11. Her name is Isabel Vivian Astle and she weighed 6 lbs. 4.4 oz., 19 in. That was on top of an end-of-summer family trip to Coney Island and the circus on Monday and Loretta starting Kindergarten on Wednesday, so all in all it's been a busy week. Tomorrow I get to join the PTA!

So in the interest of passing along some interesting information without having to write anything myself, here are two interesting articles I got a while back from the SCBWI about a new set of awards for children's books in China. Presented in conjunction with the Hong Kong Book Fair last month, the Fengzikai Children's Book Awards (named for a great Chinese illustrator) will hopefully help improve the quality of children's book authorship and illustration in the People's Republic and bring recognition, including in the West, for those who create them. Here is the official press release with all the winners and here's an article from the English-language Taiwan News.

Reading Rainbow Ends Friday

For years I watched these opening credits at least weekly, probably a lot more often. At the time, when I was young, I probably didn't think I gave Reading Rainbow as much mental clout as I gave to Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, but looking back I realize that I really did. I certainly watched it just as much, and it was really just as integral a part of my childhood--and much longer (I was still watching it at an older age than those two shows). I would have been five or six when the show went on the air, which was just the age at which I was learning to read on my own, and Reading Rainbow was just the show to guide me into the world of books, showing me the wonderful options that were available at the library. There were lots of factors in developing my love of learning, but this show was certainly one of them.

Now the show is ending its twenty-six-year run at the end of this week. As this NPR story shows, curricular needs and educational theories have left the show behind: the vogue is now all about teaching phonics and how to read, rather than the why or the what of reading. I'll not quibble with the experts, but it does seem to me that instilling a love of books for the preliterate would motivate them to acquire the necessary skills. There has to be a source that teaches those skills, but all phonic shows all the time won't give kids that love. Of course they can get it from books themselves--that's ideal--but the whole concept of educational television as it grew out of President Johnson's Great Society was that TV was ubiquitous and could help those kids whose environments don't naturally include books and libraries (i.e. poor kids). I'm a tremendous fan of WordGirl, WordWorld, Martha Speaks, Between the Lions, The Electric Company, etc., but there should still be a space within children's television for a show with Reading Rainbow's aims: to show kids why reading is so amazing. (And that's not even mentioning all the hundreds of little segments showing kids industrial processes--how grown-ups do things: Reading Rainbow and Mr. Rogers still remain the best shows at doing this sort of thing, and I'm grateful for their modern equivalents like This is Emily Yeung, although I do think something's been lost in the modern shows. To this day I can still remember Burton explaining that when you hitch oxen to a plow or wagon, you unhitch them in the same order so that no animal spends longer under the yoke than another. I'm not sure where that kind of information is on television today.)

But all good things come to an end. LeVar Burton has had a good film and television career which often overshadows this show, but Reading Rainbow is without doubt his unsung legacy and greatest achievement. He ranks up there with Fred Rogers and the longtime Sesame Street cast members as a presenter and host, a caring adult willing to spend his on-camera career guiding children into young adulthood. He's hipper than Mr. Rogers so his love for kids may be less evident, but I think he wouldn't have spent his career in this way without a profound love for children, his viewers. I know I felt his enthusiasm for books when I was in the target demographic. Josh Selig posted a great entry about Sesame Street actor Bob McGrath today and his love for children that helped put the heart into that show, and it is only fitting to praise Burton with the same words. He gave Reading Rainbow its heart.

With the rise of digital media and the post-literate generation, let's hope that there are still avenues to help kids pick up actual books (made of ink and paper) and just love them. As we strive to impart this love for reading--as parents or television producers or in any other role--we will do well to keep LeVar Burton in mind and urge kids to go out there and try it for themselves. But don't take my word for it. Watch a few clips yourself.

Finally, here are the opening credits in their more recent manifestation:

Disney Acquires Marvel Comics

It was announced today that Disney is acquiring Marvel for $4 billion. So if you're the kind of person who ever wanted to see Spiderman climbing up the side of the Cinderella castle in Anaheim, today's your lucky day. It will be very interesting to see how this effects Marvel properties (something akin to how the Muppets have played out over the past several years?), but here's the story from KidScreen, by Emily Claire Afan, with statements from both companies. 

A Great Day with Milkshake

A two-year break between albums can mean a lifetime when your fans are only three years old. But in this case the wait has been worth it, as Milkshake, one of the best children's bands in the country, released their new album Great Day yesterday. I've been listening to it for over a week, with and without Loretta, and am nothing less than impressed. After Loretta's in bed I've been letting the album mix with the likes of U2, the Kinks, Buffalo Springfield, and the Beatles, and at times I find myself forgetting that this is supposed to be children's music at all. In other words, it fits in with all those bands. Thus, in line with what I wrote in my last post, Milkshake has erased the line between kids' music and grown-up music: nowadays good music is just good music. (And parents can listen too!)

That in fact was the entire premise behind Milkshake's formation. The band formed in 2002 when two members of the indy rock band Love Riot, Lisa Mathews and Mikel Gehl, both had children born into their families and started creating music for them. Releasing an album was natural, and Happy Songs came out that year, followed by Bottle of Sunshine in 2004 and Play! in 2007. Now with Great Day, if there's a theme apparent in these titles that only speaks to the groups' commitment to creating uplifting, empowering, energetic music. One of the really refreshing things about listening to Milkshake as opposed to, say, the Kinks, is the lack of irony in the former's lyrics: a Great Day can really just be a Great Day, and that's all it is. Kids are unabashed in their guilessness, and I'm glad Mathews and Gehl have let that come through. I suppose they're rather akin to U2 in that respect.

The group's sidemen deserve mention: Mathews sings, Gehl plays acoustic and electric guitars, Michael Sheppard plays electric guitar, Cord Neal bass guitar, Tom Moon drums, and Brian Simms keyboards and accordion. On this album there's also Marcy Marxer on ukulele and mandolin, Cathy Fink on banjo, and Rodney Henry on guitar and vocals, with basically everybody pitching in on the background singing. Great Day was produced by Tor Hyams.

I mention Hyams because one of the things I've noticed musicians lamenting lately in Rolling Stone is the passing of the album. Listeners are so accustomed to dealing in tracks now that nobody listens to an album beginning to end anymore. So in this case I want to say that the individual tracks stand out and are fantastic, yet the same thing holds true: the album is crafted from beginning to end, with a definite emotional arc. The opening number, "Shake It Up," launches right into an up-tempo, driving invitation to join in the party: "The band is jamming / Everyone's dancing / Friends are coming by to play. / Guitars ringing / Everybody's singing / It's another beautiful day." This takes eleven seconds. Thus evoking the title of the album--although this isn't the title track--the very first moments are saying in effect, "If you aren't dancing already you've almost missed it."--Shake it up and don't just sit there. Kids are immediately off the couch, bouncing, wiggling, and jamming away. If we fast forward all the way to the end of "Great Day" at the end of the album, we have an extended vamp that will keep the kids moving essentially as long as the parents will let them. This song, in fact, is exceptionally well-crafted: I'm not a music writer so my descriptions are limited, but it starts with a series of staccato piano chords and the twittering of birds, into which Mathews starts singing, legato and brightly, "It's a great day," followed by some faster descriptions and more drawn out "It's a great day" refrains. The pattern is slightly imitative of the very similarly titled U2 song, "Beautiful Day," with the rhythmic keyboard, sustained strings (instead of birds), soft entrance on the vocals, and quick assertion, fairly irony-less, that it really is a beautiful day. Mathews just gets to her assertion quicker than Bono. The body of the song (I'm back to "Great Day" now) holds up, piling on the optimism as the beat slowly builds, and then the closing vamp I just mentioned, with its reverberating guitars, male vocal harmony, and extra-musical sound effects, is the kids' version of "Hey Jude." And it's about time they got one.

The upbeat numbers really rock, and I appreciate having some songs to do that with for Loretta without having to worry about lyrics or overly loud instrumentations. I can't justify singling out certain songs over others, but the first track I heard, "Statue of Me," is extremely memorable (it's got a hook), and I once opened back up my computer after a break and jumped into the middle of the bluesy "Recipe" only to have to check iTunes to see who was playing those electric guitar riffs. "You Did It" takes the empowering sentiment from Dora the Explorer and so many other shows and makes it much more palatable and, hence, realistic--and no less encouraging for kids who are mastering new skills.

But the ballads are great as well. "I Love You" is unabashed in its praise of the listener, and since it's sung from a parent to a child it is so much more concrete than the seven googol romantic love songs out there that we all know describe a much more fickle kind of love. The repetition of this single sentiment, over and over, is exactly the right thing for kids to hear. By the end the guitar drops out and Mathews finishes with a few, quiet, almost earthy repetitions of the phrase, almost whispering her child to sleep. (If you want a lullaby from the album, this is it, although it's a little short.) The vacuum her diminishing voice creates will draw children in, attentively listening to the last notes. Pulling back like this in the middle of a rock album is important: it shows the phrasing of the entire album (this is the penultimate track, just before the fairly rocking "Great Day" I just described) and, because of its contrast to the louder surrounding material, will acquire greater attention from the kids. 

Milkshake's website has some sample MP3s available, which is how I first heard some of the music weeks ago. Click through and check them out.

Kind of Blue at 50

It is finally here: the fiftieth anniversary of one of the greatest albums of all time, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, released August 17, 1959. As I write this I'm listening to Cannonball Adderley's solo on "So What?" that I tried in vain to transcribe in college on my own alto saxophone. While that was a miserable failure, it proved to me again (as though I needed it) just how incredible the album and the musicians on it are. 

There's a mammoth new special edition out there, but I think everyone--kids included--should just listen to a track or two, regardless of your previous jazz experience. It's simply great music, and that brings me to how this applies to children's media: good music makes for good, smart kids. I'm no proponent of the Mozart effect, or Bach effect, or whatever it's called, but by that I understand the belief that listening to classical or complex music can actually physically fire more synapses and increase brain capacity. That's essentially a myth, but we must be careful to not toss out the baby with the bathwater--there's still a place for great music in a child's life, be it jazz, classical, or something else.

My wife Carol runs on Saturday mornings (even seven months pregnant), so for Loretta and I that's become Jazz Saturday Mornings, wherein we fire up iTunes and make either pancakes or French toast, with the occasional foray into waffles. We've been doing that most weeks for well over a year, and I've been able to expose her to quite a variety of styles, from early New Orleans King Oliver type stuff to Herbie Hancock, maybe a dash of Ornette Coleman, etc. She's liked some of it--she loved making a video to Dixieland (Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives) for Mardi Gras--but it hasn't sunk into her like, say, The Little Mermaid music. So, speaking of Disney, that's why I was so pleased several months ago when we watched The Aristocats. The "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" number gave us a hook with which to really draw her into jazz. It is a classic of children's cinema:

There's also an earlier scene in which two of the kittens, Marie and Berlioz, practice the piano while singing another great number. (See it here; the songs are by the ubiquitous Sherman brothers, whom I've written about before.) So long story short we combined the two scenes and started playing "Aristocats practice jazz" in our Jazz Saturday Mornings by playing Diana Krall, especially her work with her original drumless trio in the Nat Cole mode (All For You, etc.). So now Loretta pretends to be Marie singing and playing the piano, I fill in on everything else, and several weeks later I now have a five-year-old who knows most of the words to "Hit that Jive, Jack." Diana Krall and The Aristocats have serendipitously combined to help my daughter love music. (Coincidence that Carol's and my third or fourth date was a Diana Krall concert? Hm...)

This is verbose and autobiographical, but what's the point? That there's room for good adult music in children's lives. Today on its anniversary we should remember that Kind of Blue is one of those albums, accessible to everyone of every age. If kids listen to music like this, they won't necessarily enlarge their brains or gain the power to explain polyphonic improvisation or even how modal jazz works, but they will learn to appreciate great art. And when the time comes for them to start learning their scales and their arpeggios, it certainly won't have hurt. 

Shakespeare in 3D

I'm a longstanding bardophile--Shakespeare (seen here in those newfangled 3D glasses) is the only playwright who I've read through his entire corpus, besides lots of viewing, especially at the Globe in London, and a pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon--so it's interesting to learn in Variety about the plans to adapt six of his best known plays as 3D films for kids; equally interesting is the plan to make them as musicals, Steve Coogan's recent foray notwithstanding. (Actually, I quite liked Kenneth Branagh's musical Love's Labours Lost a few years back, despite the necessary thinning of the plot to fit in the jazz standards.) Here is the Variety article, by Audrey Ward. 

The Little House in New York(er)

Judith Thurman has a fantastic article in last week's New Yorker about the Little House author Laura Ingalls Wilder (above) and her daughter Rose. I've been reading the New Yorker every week for about a year and a half and I've been quite pleased with the number of articles they've published about children's literature in that time, with both Babar and Stuart Little springing to mind. I'm grateful for such in-depth looks at the lives of children's authors of which this is the latest. Here it is.

Older Dora - Part 3

I've written, briefly, twice before about Nickelodeon's plans to update Dora the Explorer by creating an older Dora to appeal to girls from 5-8. Here's my entry from August 2008 and again from February, when Nick and licensor Mattel unveiled the character's new look. And, by the way, here is the image that is circulating the Web under that banner (I'll optimistically assume it's legitimate, but even if not it's probably a step towards what the finished character design will look like):


Controversy continues to broil, as far as I know. I haven't checked lately for blog entries and upset mothers and things of that nature, but here is at least one article from April that I've been meaning to link to since I read it back then. 

My thoughts haven't evolved too much in the passing months. I think there's great potential for good or bad, and the property could go either way. The bad potentialities are obvious and are the very issues that have upset parents: that the new character will reinforce negative stereotypes for girls and will thereby diminish their potential. In other words, the new Dora will focus on superficial qualities like appearance and fashion that many parents of girls, myself included, wish would be entirely eradicated from the lives of children and teenagers. So this Dora could be leading kids--they're not even "tweens" yet, and that in itself is a term I distrust as an attempt to age up kids too soon (in my book an eleven-year-old is still a child)--down the path of the Dark Side. 

But the good side has some pretty intense potential, especially given the penetration of the current show (which will continue, with its merchandising intact, by the way) and the empowering components of its curriculum. I know Dora is often criticized, as on the famous Saturday Night Live skit, for encouraging passivity and subjugation--bossing kids about--but the whole point of preschool programming is to encourage self-sufficiency in children. As an interactive show, Dora takes that about as far as you can by really giving strong prompts to children to help them get Dora's questions right and feel empowered in helping her achieve her quests. Take that same commitment to empowerment and raise it up to the older age group and you can have something very needed. The older kids get, on up to adolescence, the harder it is to create shows with curriculum that they will actually watch. If Nick can add the new Dora, as a television show and not just a licensing endeavor, to their programs for 5-8 year-olds, then that will strengthen the bridge for carrying curriculum over into young adulthood. She has the star charisma to be able to pull that off more than any original series. So that's what I hope to see happen: all the good possibilities fulfilled and all the negative ones circumvented. I hope Mattel avoids making her into a dress-up doll--her head's the same size as the Bratz--and Nickelodeon makes a show with a great hook and curriculum for older kids.