A Treasure in My Garden

The talents of author/lyricist Gilles Vigneault, illustrator Stephane Jorisch, roots music group Hart-Rouge, and animation house Tooncan (notable for their work on the Oscar-winning The Triplets of Belleville) are combined in A Treasure in My Garden, which features 13 animated surreal storybook shorts. Standout stories and songs include the hyperkinetic “The Pot,” stop-motion “The Man from Leeds,” “Apple Song” (with art made from real popcorn and cotton balls), “Sleepy Sheep Hoedown for the Kid Who Won't Lie Down” (a square dance), the dreamlike “The Lamppost” (a garden tale), the melancholy “My Treasure,” the circus-themed “Scuttlebutt, What a Nut,” the watercolor “Love and Work” (on cooperation and harmony), and the fiddle-backed “On the Tip of My Tongue.” Although most of the tales in this “visual delight for young and old” are funny and child-friendly, some are a little more haunting (the rhyme for “Boxes” ends with the raspy line “a box made out of breath to hide death”). Highly recommended. [Note: the DVD is also available packaged in a companion hardcover illustrated storybook, priced at $16.95.]. Aud: P. (J. Williams-Wood)