The Neighborhood Sing-Along
©Nina Crews 2011 Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins Publishers ISBN 9780061850639; ISBN10: 0061850632
About The Neighborhood Sing-Along
Playground songs and classroom songs, silly songs and sweet songs, wake–up songs and bedtime songs… Everyday, children, parents, friends, brothers, and sisters sing songs to one another.
Nina Crews brings her energetic style of illustration to this collection of thirty-four perennial favorites. From “Miss Mary Mack” (watching fireworks from her balcony) to “London Bridge” (built by a brother and sister in the living room) to “Skip to My Lou (in a rolling green park), the songs make this companion to the acclaimed The Neighborhood Mother Goose a treasure for every child in the neighborhood.
Reviews
(starred) A hop, skip and a jump away from The Neighborhood Mother Goose (2003), Crews once again places classic nursery fare in the middle of bright, bustling Brooklyn streets.
This time, however, she sets her sights on songs—34 of them, to be exact. Photos of joyful, ethnically diverse children found in playgrounds, parks and cozy home settings infuse well-known tunes (and some forgotten favorites) with warmth and energy. Many scenes are quite literal: "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" shows youngsters playing baseball in the park. Others have a playful twist: "It's Raining, It's Pouring" has a boy gleefully jumping atop the "old man" in bed (i.e. Daddy), with an appropriately rain-splotched window in the background. "London Bridge" is in fact a bridge built with wooden blocks, and "Alouette" shows a boy racing towards pigeons—the urban equivalent of a lark if ever there was one. Crews also offers familiar digital effects: "Miss Mary Mack" has elephants high in the sky, while "I'm a Little Teapot" shows a rather large teapot with tiny children climbing on it. Sheet music is not included, but an author's note points readers to other books and online resources for help with the tunes.
A collection that begs to be sung in all neighborhoods—city stoops or country front-porch swings alike. (Picture book. 3-6) Kirkus Reviews
As she did in The Neighborhood Mother Goose (2004), Crews selects energetic, colorful photos of a multicultural, multiracial cast of kids in a variety of urban settings to accompany this collection of traditional songs, spirituals, nursery rhymes and more. Its focus on contemporary cityscapes distinguishes this from other collections of children's songs, which tend to feature folkloric, old-fashioned artwork. For example, "I've Been Working on the Railraod" is illustrated with a picture of the New York Subway. The overall look and feel are reminiscent of the opening scenes from Sesame Street, which helps to make these old favorites relevant and accessible to new-fashioned kids. Booklist
Crews’s compilation of mostly familiar children’s songs is a follow-up and companion to her well-received The Neighborhood Mother Goose (Greenwillow, 2004). Lyrics are set against full-page photographs of urban streets, parks, and playgrounds–interiors and exteriors, recognizable and obscure–and are peopled with a multicultural array of smiling children. Some of the photographs show scenes from ordinary life (these are the most effective); others have been digitally manipulated with collage effect in order to better reflect the lyrics. Among the 30-plus selections are popular and even ubiquitous tunes such as “The Alphabet Song,” “The Wheels on the Bus,” and “Miss Mary Mack,” along with the more obscure “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Down by the Riverside.” The selections are not organized in any specific way; it would be helpful to have an alphabetical index as was done in the Mother Goose book. These comments aside, a valuable collective cultural inheritance resides in these songs, and though there are other, more comprehensive volumes available (some including the music), this bright, attractive package is a good introduction. A helpful listing of resources for more songs and help with the tunes of those included appears on the copyright page.–Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick’s Catholic School, Charlotte, NC School Library Journal