Price: $12.82

A collection from EMI’s back catalogue, there’s some genuine children’s classics on this, like “Nellie the Elephant”, “The Hippopotamus Song” (”Mud, mud, glorious mud”) and, a contender for the title of my favourite song ever, “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic”. The versions are the originals that you might have heard in your own childhood - or, at least, they’re the versions I’m familiar with from when I was a kid.

It’s a little old-fashioned - I can’t imagine kids these days are as interested in trains as they were when “The Runaway Train” was recorded, for example - and some of the tunes seem like they were originally novelty songs for adults like Rolf Harris’s “Jake the Peg” (about a three-legged man, complete with laughter track). Isabelle, of course, doesn’t care about such things -”The Railroad Runs Through the Middle of the House” is one of her favourites (I suspect because it’s bouncy and danceable and has handclaps), and she thinks “My Boomerang Won’t Come Back” is just hilarious: “hey Dad, my boooomerang won’t come back HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

It’s a little bit more sedate than some of the more modern kids stuff, so I guess this might best suit a not-so-extroverted kid or, maybe, a wild child whose engines you don’t want to rev too much.

The standout songs make the CD worth buying, even if you do end up skipping tracks here and there (like the dreadful “All Things Bright and Beautiful”). Heather absolutely loves being danced around the kitchen to “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” and on Saturday we found that “The Hippopotamus Song” is very handy to know when you’re visiting the Zoo.

Here’s the complete track listing, in case you’re looking for something in particular:

1. Nellie the Elephant
2. The Runaway Train
3. In the Middle of the House (”The railroad runs through the middle of the house …”)
4. My Grandfather’s Clock
5. The Owl and the Pussycat
6. Puffin’ Billy
7. All Things Bright and Beautiful
8. Robin Hood (yep, it’s “Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the glen, …”)
9. How Much is the Doggie in the Window (from Pinky and Perky, those puppet pigs with the squeaky voices)
10. I’ve Lost my Mummy (the Rolf Harris number with the kid wailing “I’VE LOST MY MUUUMMY”)
11. The Laughing Policeman
12. My Boomerang Won’t Come Back
13. You’re a Pink Toothbrush
14. I Taut I Taw a Putty-Tat
15. Teddy Bears’ Picnic
16. Ballad of Davy Crockett (”Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the wild frontier …”)
17. The Hippopotamus Song
18. Jake the Peg
19. Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellenbogen by the Sea
20. Wooddy Woodpecker
21. Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf (Pinky and Perky again)
22. The Ugly Duckling
23. I Know and Old Lady (who swallowed a fly)
24. The Bee Song
25. When I see an Elephant Fly