Dear Netters,
I assembled and posted this back in the summer. I'm
reposting it in answer to a question yesterday and so everyone could
get a chance to see it. Lots of good songs here! (I'm also a music
librarian with the New Song Library, which finds songs by topic,
particularly around issues of social justice. Web site is
http://users.rcn.com/johanna.newsong/)
I have found a group (a duo, actually) who performs children's songs
and who has a number of library song and lots of songs about books.
Gold mine! The duo calls themselves Two of a Kind. They are Jenny
and David Heitler-Klevans. Here's a sample of their library fare:
Hanging Out with Heroes in the Library (by Monty Harper)
It's a foot-stomping, rope-swinging barrel of fun
There's something in a book for everyone
to make your heart pound faster and your eyes pop out
It'll get you so riled up you just gotta shout
that the hero of the story is the one you wanna be
I love hanging out with heroes at the library
Library Song (by Michael Mark & Tom Chapin)
I'm going down to the library
Picking out a book, check it in, check it out
Gonna say "Hi" to the dictionary
Picking out a book, check it in, check it out
Read a Book (Marcy Marxer)
If you're looking for adventure
you want to unwind
Pick up a good story,
get out of that old grind and
Read a book
(read, read, read, read a book)
Read a book
(read, read, read, read a book)
If you're looking for laughter
If fun is what you're after
Read a book
(read, read, read, read a book)
They also have songs about Harriet the Spy, Where The Wild Things
Are, Swimmy, and Hey, Little Ant (which actually started out as a
song and then got made into a book). They do performances about
reading and libraries.
Here's their web site: http://www.twoofakind.com/ Their address is
7426 Barclay Rd., Cheltenham, PA 19012. Phone number is (215)
782-8258. Email address: david2kind@aol.com.
I just got a CD in the mail (for my other library, the social justice
song library) titled I Like To Read. It is by Rick Goldin. I can't
find a web address for him, so you need to write to
Rick Golden
rickgolden@wn.net
Music Programs for Children
PO Box 80088
Stoneham, MA 02180
781-662-0222
Tell him you heard it from LM_NET.
A songwriter friend of mine just wrote this. Unfortunately he's not
recording it, but maybe you can find a way to use it anyway.
You Take Me Far Away
Words by Bob Blue
Tune by Carole King
So far away.
When I hear you read, I'm not here any more.
Maybe I'm in France in 1754.
Listening to you read can take me...
...far away.
Books turn on the lights for me, and open my mind.
Every time you read to me, I feel so fine.
Would you please be kind, and take me far away?
Hearing a story moves me along the highway.
To a place that's magical and new.
I'm learning how to read books on my own now.
I like doing that, but just for now,
Please take me far away.
Take me on adventures in some place I don't know.
Take me to the future or to ages ago.
If you would read to me,
You'd take me far away.
Yeah, take me far away.
I know I have to work in my reading workbook.
And I know I have to learn some math.
I know that in school, we have to study.
As long as you'll read to me, I don't mind.
So take me far away.
When I hear you read, I won't be here any more.
Maybe I'll be somewhere I have not been before.
Listening to you read will take me far away.
Yeah, take me far away.
Take me far away.
Here's two more neat library songs:
Encyclopedia
This world is whistles and missiles
Bones and trombones
Turtles and fish in the sea
Ice cream and jumping beans
Atoms and genes
From zero to infinity
Look it up, look it up, look it up
Look it up, look it up, look it up
Encyclopedia, encyclopedia
on NRBQ You're Nice People You Are, Rounder Records CD 8045
http://www.rounder.com/Album.asp?catalog_id=3535
The Day The Library Went Wild
by Jay Mankita, (title cut)
THE DAY THE LIBRARY WENT WILD
The day the library went wild started out like any other ordinary day.
Eagles and whales, feathers and scales--you probably won't believe me anyway.
Strange, but true--it really happened! I know that it did, because
I was there! I saw it all! The fins, and the fur, and the claws.
I first suspected that something was strange even before I walked
through the door.
Wild animal calls and smells of the jungle were coming up through the
walls, and the floor
Was shaking as if a mad, raging stampede of rampaging moose
Were all on the loose,
With elephants, buffalo, horses, and more!
I breathed a deep breath as I opened the door...
(6 stanzas later)
And I blinked for a moment, and here I stood--in my own library, in
my own neighborhood!
All of the books were strewn on the floor, and suddenly, somebody
opened the door.
There were kids coming in, the library was open,
And I found myself hoping
I'd know what to say
About all that I'd been through on this wildest of days.
http://www.jaymankita.com/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here's some more info about the book & library songs I told you about
on Two of a Kind's albums:
Hanging Out With Heroes at the Library
by Monty Harper http://www.montyharper.com/Songs/HOWHatL.html
Monty wrote this song for the Oklahoma Department of Libraries' 1993
summer reading program theme, "Hanging out with heroes at the
library." He hasn't recorded it.
Read A Book
by Marcy Marxer, sung by Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer
on their album Help Yourself Rounder CD 8021
http://www.cathymarcy.com/
Library Song
by Tom Chapin and Michael Mark
on Tom Chapin's album Moon Boat
http://members.aol.com/chapinfo/tc/tcmb.html
And Judy Freeman reminded me:
I have several library-related songs on my Hi Ho Librario: Songs Chants &
Stories to Keep Kids Humming CD/audio cassette and book (Rock Hill Press,
1997), including The Biggest Book and, of course, the title song, written by
my dear friend and mentor, Jane Scherer. There's also the Card Catalog Song
(remember those?), and an updated Automated Catalog Song, plus book chants,
Look for 398.2, and my own personal favorite about being good to your books,
Alas and Alack: The Wounded Book's Lament, which I based on all those old and
wonderful songs about dead and dying cowboys. If you don't like to sing, you
can put on the tape and lip synch. No one need ever know.
Tom Chapin's Library Song is one of my favorites--I love to sing it with
kids, adding motions for "Check it in, check it out" and making a big
rainbow-like wave when we sing "gonna say Hi to the dictionary." His tapes
are sublime--each song is like a little play. You know he's Harry Chapin's
brother, right? He does a lot of concerts for kids & their grown-ups and is a
wonderful performer.
Judy Freeman
Children's Literature Consultant
"Book Talk" Columnist, Instructor Magazine
65 North Sixth Avenue
Highland Park NJ 08904
732-572-5634 / BKWSSF@aol.com
www.JudyReadsBooks.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
--
Johanna Halbeisen, Library Media Teacher
Woodland Elementary School (preK-4)
80 Powder Mill Rd, Southwick, MA 01077
johanna.newsong@rcn.com
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