BabySongs: Good Night

A popular staple in both library and home collections, the BabySongs series, featuring songs by Hap Palmer, has just given birth to a new addition: Good Night, a compilation of 10 music videos encouraging kids to wink, blink and--please--nod off to sleep. The opening number, Old Rocking Chair, started off a little slow: Grandma and baby sit and rock and...sit and rock and...sit and--suddenly Gram, babe and chair go airborne, out the window, over the hills and through the dale (so to speak), with the superimposed pair looking at all sorts of cool sights down below. While the visual effects are not quite as nifty in the other nine songs (excepting "Sleep My Baby" with its chorus of three miniature guys in what looks like golf attire crooning baby to sleep), Hap Palmer's songs are unflaggingly top-notch. My favorite: "Spinning on the Same Ball," a beautiful testament to the fact that we all--regardless of race, color or creed--call Earth our home. Combining animation, live action, and a few special effects, BabySongs: Good Night offers a pretty good visual showcase for Hap Palmer's wonderful songs. Recommended. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)