International Baby 101: English & Japanese

All together now: “Arupusu ichimanjaku koyari no ue de…” Or as we say in English, “Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on a pony….” (Although, apparently, we're not dealing with a literal translation in this case.) International Baby 101: English & Japanese presents 14 classic children's songs, sung in English and Japanese, with the DVD options of viewing the teeny-tiny subtitled words onscreen in either language (with a choice of Japanese phonetic or character subtitles) or selecting “music only.” While the songs are being performed, young viewers watch brightly colored plastic toys, children playing, and animation. Like many other programs for babies, there's not much connecting the images to the songs (I don't know what little figures climbing steps and sliding down slides has to do with Yankee Doodle, for instance). However, my toddler was certainly interested in watching this, so maybe content doesn't matter as much for the suggested "0-24 months" audience. Libraries serving sizeable Japanese-American communities may wish to consider; optional elsewhere. Aud: P. (R. Reagan)