Check out my recent post on sound books for the big picture on interactive books where kids press a button to play a sound. This post focuses on some great music-themed sound books. (Pressing a button starts a song, pressing it again stops the song.)

At the bottom of the post, I have a video, where you can hear a sample of what each of these books sounds like.

Disclaimer: Pirouette Kids sent me two of their books to review. This post includes my unbiased review of those books, and info on books from other publishers for comparison.

Pirouette Kids

Their focus in on “music beyond nursery rhymes”. They have four books at this time, the two I review below, plus World Music and Classical Music.

Some overall impressions: I like the size of the books – easy to pack, easy for small hands to hold. The pages are sturdy. The buttons to activate the music can be a little tricky for a child to spot for the first time, and activating them requires pressing precisely on them (a fine motor skill builder) but they work reliably. The speaker is on the back – so, if it’s laying flat on a surface, it is much quieter than if held upright. (That can be an advantage if you’re holding the book as you can adjust the volume a bit. If the child is using it lying flat on carpet, it’s pretty quiet.)

The books can be purchased on Pirouette’s website for $18.99 each.

Pirouette’s I Discover Folk Music

This board book has snippets of 6 folk music tunes (Oh Susanna, This Land, Little Liza Jane, Sarasponda, Home on the Range, This Little Light). Each page has the lyrics for 3 or 4 lines of the song, and a button that plays a 15 second clip. They are all performed by the same musician – Daria, who is pleasant to listen to and not cutesy / chirpy as many performers are when doing children’s songs. The illustrations by Margarita Fomenko, which feature animals doing human things, are pretty cute.

I like the choice of songs – it expands outside the typical kid songs repertoire but still all quite accessible. The 15 seconds is really short. It works OK on some songs, like Little Liza Jane feels complete on its own, but many feel like a song is just getting started then gets cut off abruptly. (They do have full versions of each song available on Spotify and there’s a QR code on the back of the book that takes you there.) For me as an adult who knows these songs well, they leave me feeling a little incomplete, and I wish they could wrap up a full verse or chorus. But that likely won’t trouble a child who is new to these songs.

Overall, it’s a cute book with nice tunes you might not find elsewhere, and I would recommend it.

Pirouette’s I Discover Blues Music

This book has snippets of 6 blues songs – recordings by original artists. There are 3 vocal tracks: Goodnight Irene by Jerry Lee Lewis and his band (1958), Careless Love by Big Joe Turner (1958), See See Rider by Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton, and 3 instrumental: John Henry Blues by Erskine Hawkins and his Orchestra (1950), Old Stack O’Lee Blues by Sydney Bechet and Nicholas Blue Five (1949), Jumping at the Woodside by Buddy Tate and his Celebrity Orchestra. I love that they included the “real” versions of these songs, and chose songs that children are unlikely to be exposed to elsewhere (a few of these are even new to me, and I thought I had listened to a lot of old blues!) I love the John Henry Blues especially.

Illustrations by Sakshi Mangal are cute, and show animals doing human things. Since many of the songs are instrumental, instead of having lyrics on the page, they have information about the tune, and questions to ask a child. Here are two examples.

and

On Pirouette’s website, they have links to where you can find full versions on Spotify. (Though there’s not a QR code on the book to point you to this page.) A caution though: these are blues songs, so some of the lyrics in the full vocal performance aren’t kid friendly, for example, See See Rider says “I’m gonna buy me a pistol, Just as long as I am tall… Kill my man.” But you can also find instrumental only versions of the tunes. For Good Night Irene, there are kid friendly versions of the lyrics.

These song clips are again only 15 second snippets, but it doesn’t bother me on these like it did on the folk music one… since I know they’re long songs it makes sense that it’s only a sample vs with the folk songs, sometimes I felt like if they’d just had one more line of the chorus it would have felt more complete.

I definitely appreciate the way this book helps to stretch our repertoire of “fun music for kids to listen to.” I recommend it.

Ditty Bird’s Chinese Children’s Songs

Ditty Bird has LOTS of books. Sounds, Songs, Bilingual… the one I reviewed was Chinese Childen’s Songs Volume 1 It includes 6 songs: Two Tigers, Where’s Spring, Little Donkey, Picking Radish, Good Little Rabbit, Where’s My Friend. I love that these are traditional Chinese songs. I do not speak Mandarin but the reviews say the pronunciation is good and that traditional Chinese instruments are used. The recordings are pleasant to listen to. They are as long as they need to be for the complete song, so 12 – 25 seconds.

They include the lyrics, in pinyin and traditional characters, and an English translation. (Unfortunately the English words don’t seem to scan to the tune.) I wish the lyrics were printed in a larger font for all of us who are over 40 to read! The illustrations are cute, showing animals in Chinese settings, wearing both traditional and modern clothing.

Like the Pirouette books, this is a nice small, sturdy board book, with the speaker on the back. The music buttons seem to be the same technology – so they work well, though do require a child to put their finger in a specific place. It is $19.99 on Amazon. (affiliate link). Reviews on Amazon say that durability can be an issue, with some reviewers reporting the buttons stopped working.

I purchased this book because I mean to learn some children’s songs in Mandarin, and although there are many YouTube videos and other resources online, I have not been remembering to use them. Having a physical book on the table reminds me to listen.

I recommend this book too.

Bao Bao Learns Chinese

This company has 3 Chinese books, plus similar books in: Tagalog, French, Spanish, Korean and English. I reviewed their Chinese Volume 1 which includes 6 songs – some traditional Chinese – Two Tigers, FInd a Friend, and Mama is the Best in the World, and some traditional English – Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row Your Boat, and Twinkle Twinkle. It includes lyrics in English, pinyin, and Mandarin. (In a larger font than Ditty Bird.) The Mandarin words do line up with the English tunes. But I can’t make the English words scan well to the tunes for the Chinese songs.

This is a bigger book – a little harder for little hands to hold. The soundbox is to the side of the pages. It does have two volume settings to choose from. Since the buttons are off to the side, a child has to figure out which one to press to get the song that matches that page – the image on the button is just some small portion of the image that’s on the page, so I’m not sure it’s obvious to kids which image goes with which page. (And the soundbox has random shaped openings for the buttons that don’t really line up with the illustrations.)

Songs repeat twice so recordings range from around 30 seconds to 85 seconds. The repetition helps with learning. They’re nice recordings and very pleasant to listen to. They offer super helpful resources on their webpage, like information on how to pronounce Mandarin words, and videos where they talk you through the lyrics of each song, clearly enunciated so you can get the pronunciation right. (I wish they had a QR code on the back that would take me right to that page.) $28.99 on Amazon.

For learning Mandarin songs, if I had to choose just one of Bao Bao or Ditty Bird, I would choose Bao Bao, but am happy to have both.

Singing with Go Go is Fun

There are LOTS of Go-Go books. Including English, Spanish, Mandarin and a Christian themed line. They are $29.99 each. I have the “9 Creative Nursery Rhymes” volume. (I’d swear that what I put in my Amazon cart was one of the Go Go Mandarin books, but this is what Amazon says I ordered and what they sent….) It has 9 songs – Humpty Dumpty, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Jack and Jill, Wheels on the Bus, London Bridge, Mulberry Bush, Muffin Man, I’m a Little Teapot, and Mary Quite Contrary. Many of the songs are pretty traditional, but on Itsy Bitsy and Jack and Jill, they added a little riff at the end, and the Wheels on the Bus became “the Go Go Bus goes round and round.”

This is another large board book, with the controls on buttons off to the right side. There are two volume settings, controlled on that side panel. The child needs to figure out which of the 9 buttons matches the song for the page they’re on (the 10th button is just announcing the name of the book). Songs are up to 60 or so seconds.

Personally, I don’t like the style of these recordings. They’re like Barney the Dinosaur vibe – just a little too enthusiastic / peppy with kiddie pronunciation. I’m not a fan.

Hear samples from every book: