Gonna Sing My Head Off! American Folk Songs for Children - Hardcover

Grade 2 Up-- ``From California to the New York Island,'' this book was made for you and me! Hard as it is to believe, Gonna Sing My Head Off! is the first serious collection for young readers since Ruth Crawford Seeger's memorable American Folk Songs for Children (Doubleday, 1980). Margaret Boni's The Fireside Book of Folksongs (S. & S., 1952; o.p.) and Tom Glazer's Treasury of Folk Songs (Grosset, 1964; o.p.) are also library staples. Hang on to them; there's surprisingly little overlap here. Of the 62 folk songs Krull has selected, only 21 are in Glazer's larger compendium. Some classics from Seeger's title are not in this one, but Krull has amassed so many outstanding selections that no one will be disappointed. She pays tribute to many of our folk singers by including ``Joe Hill'' for Joan Baez, ``Good Night Irene'' and ``Rock Island Line'' for Leadbelly, ``If I Had a Hammer' for Pete Seeger, and ``So Long, It's Been Good to Know You'' for Woodie Guthrie. The oversized book itself is handsome, uncluttered, and accessible. Short, readable paragraphs accompany each entry and tell a little of its history. The musical arrangements are easy to follow. There is a helpful index of song types as well as of first lines. Garns's warm pastel drawings evoke the many moods of the music with great success. His rich palette, use of perspective, and energetic lines add verve and variety to this sparkling sampler. Librarians, teachers, parents, and children who get a hold of this book are sure to sing their heads off. --Ann Stell, Central Islip Public Library, NY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This superbly edited songbook is akin to an invigorating musical tour of American history and American regions. Its flavorsome contents include sea chanteysstet like the 100-year-old ballad "The Sloop John B. ," the traditional square-dance tune "Old Joe Clark," and Lee Haysstet and Pete Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer." Concise introductions explain each song's origins and influence, and sometimes offer lore--the train song "City of New Orleans" was written by a railroad rider campaigning for Edmund Muskie, and commemorates a route followed by none other than Casey Jones. Krull provides uncomplicated arrangements for both piano and guitar, and she notes that she has chosen the keys "easiest for the average person to sing and play in." Garns's illustrations, which seem to have been executed in crayon, have a dreamy quality not suggested by the zingy songs. His figures tend to be isolated and/or frozen into their poses (the art for "Oh, Susanna!" for example, eschews the mirthful banjo-strumming of the first verse in order to portray the slumbering man's vision of Susanna in verse No. 2), or figures are absent altogether; these static compositions lose the music. All ages.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.