Animals Rock with Lucas Miller! Vol. 1: Monarchs, Metamorphosis and More!

“Singing zoologist” Lucas Miller, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and an explorer's vest, takes a roomful of kids through the lifecycle journey of the monarch butterfly and a few other creatures, using song, story, pictures, cartoons, and graphics. Miller (designated an American Masterpiece Artist by the National Endowment for the Arts) has a rubber-like expressive face and a manic manner, but his information is solid. In a beautiful sequence, children see the monarchs develop from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly, before learning about their migration to Mexico and back each year. Seeing kids sing along to “Metamorphosis,” a song about a frog's lifecycle, is wonderful, as they wrap their minds around the word and its meaning. Miller's performance becomes somewhat less engaging when the pink poodle puppet Fifi the Ferocious discovers that turtles (too hard), skunks (too stinky), and porcupines (too spiky) are not good to eat (although a song about these animals—a version of “Twinkle, Twinkle”—sports the memorable first line, “Stinkle, stinkle, little skunky, tell me why you smell so funky”). Recommended, overall. Aud: E, P. (G.A. DeCandido)