5x7 Guest Review: Old Town School of Folk Music's "Songs for Wiggleworms"

Songs for Wiggleworms
Old Town School of Folk Music

The occupational hazard of being a kids music reviewer is getting far more CDs than your family has the time to listen to. Few albums, no matter how good, break out of my review pile and into our family's CD player because we can't listen to them all as it is. Even CDs we used to listen to a lot rarely get pulled off the shelf anymore.

One of the few that remains popular with us is the Old Town School of Folk Music's [website] first collection of kids' songs, Songs for Wiggleworms. We liked the CD when we first got it, but it's been the five or six years of use since then that have revealed just how wonderful a simple collection of classic kids' songs - this collection - can be. As our first child has moved into elementary school, we're finding that we're listening to it all again with our second child, a toddler.

Even though - or perhaps because - I hear so much kids' music, I forget just how many kids' songs exist. It would be impossible to collect them all on one disk, but at nearly 40 tracks, this CD includes most of the ones you'd want. It also has a few less well-known tunes that new parents might not be familiar with, such as "Peanut Butter and Jelly" ("peanut, peanut butter... AND JELLY!") and "If All of the Raindrops." And for those of you worried about cheesy synthesizers and over-emoting singers, have no fear. Accompanied usually by little more than guitar, and sounding like it was recorded right there in your living room, it's the simplicity that wins you over and makes repeat spins the easiest thing in the world.

There are many CDs that are works of art, and those are important, but few CDs have become part of our daily lives like this one has. - Stefan Shepherd, Zooglobble

Top Tracks: Three Little Ducks / Peanut Butter and Jelly / If All Of The Raindrops / Are You Sleeping? / The Ants Go Marching (by Ralph Covert, who got his kids music start teaching at the Old Town School)

Buy it at: Amazon.com | CDBaby | iTunes