There’s a DVD too that comes with the CD with home-made-y animated/puppet videos for each song – they’re not slick, but they’re funny and good, and they help tie the letter shapes to the letter names.

I’m one of those people who once thought “elemeno” was a single letter so my favourite song on this is probably “LMNO”, but there’s lots of other highlights to choose from, like the whimsical organ-based instrumental “Rolling O” or “Flying V” with its little Cuban piano muntuno. Isabelle’s favourite is “E eats everything” in which all the letters have various food quirks, except for E, who eats everything. “That’s a really good song”, she says. “Yeah, well”, says I. “It’d be nice if you ate everything.” “Don’t be silly, Dad.”

Alphabet of Nations E eats everything Flying V Rolling O L M N O

Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away

On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street

Niamh, washing the dishes, just said “Oooooooh!”. Then on came:

Who are the people in your neighbourhood, in your neighbourhood

In your neigh-bour-hood …

… and I couldn’t stop grinning, I felt like I was 5 again. Obviously not every song you might have loved in your childhood is here (like the sadly absent “One of these kids is doing his own thing”), but there’s a wide enough selection from across the years to put a smile on the face of any grown-up – from “C is for Cookie” to “Elmo’s song”.

As for Isabelle’s and Heather’s reactions – well, Sesame St is famous for testing everything they do on kids and only using stuff that the kids really engage with, and it shows. They’ve never seen the show, but Isabelle has really taken to the characters just based on the songs – “Who’s singing this? Grover? Is he a boy? He sounds like Mrs. Piggy.” (yes, Mrs. Piggy, she doesn’t really get the Mrs./Miss thing just yet – she calls Heather “Little Mrs. Mischief”) – and now she’s listening to lyrics a bit she’s getting a big kick out of the idea of monsters singing about how much they love rubbish and frogs lamenting their colour. And Heather spent Friday morning squealing with delight while “dancing” her baby dolly up and down on the kitchen floor to “Rubber Duckie”.

So – a fun nostalgic treat for adults, and the kids dig it too.

Sesame St theme People in your neighbourhood Rubber Duckie Elmo’s Song ‘C’ is for cookie

They Might Be Giants

One of my fellow dads-in-bands introduced me to They Might Be Giant’s children’s music output. The first time me and Niamh listened to this CD we were doing the washing up, and by the time we got to “There’s only 1 everything” (track 3) we were grinning and dancing around the kitchen like teenagers. The basic template, I suppose, is American alternative rock but very quirky, very melodic, and fun fun fun! There’s lots of musical highlights – the Elton-John-esque (back when he was good) “I’m the number 2″, the killer sax riff on “Seven”, the little girl’s singing on “One dozen monkeys” – and some fantastic lyrics. Check this out:

Nine bowls of soup on the wings of an airplane/Flown by an ichthyosaur

Haha! Amazing! There’s also a couple of non-number-themed tracks at the end, like “Hot dog!” and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme – when I saw this I was moaning about Disney putting in irrelevant Disney-related bonus tracks, but then I realised They Might Be Giants actually wrote them. There’s an accompanying DVD too, with Sesame-Street-ish little videos for each of the songs and inter-song banter from two woollen puppets both called John.

Isabelle actually took a little longer to warm to this than me and Niamh did, and it took the Mickey Mouse tunes and a look at the DVD to really convince her, but after that she was a Fan and we listened to little else for weeks. I regularly hear her singing “Triops has three eyes” to herself when she’s supposed to be going to sleep, and “Days of the week” now rivals the elephant’s march from The Jungle Book soundtrack as our favourite marching song (it’s lyrics being particularly close to my heart – “On Monday I never go to work/On Tuesday I stay at home/…”). I’ve even overheard her mother singing “One dozen monkeys” in the shower.

So yeah, a bit hit with all the family – in fact it’s the best album of any kind I’ve bought so far this year. And if that’s not a high enough recommendation, I’ve just found out that this won a Grammy this year for “Best musical album for children”.

There’s only 1 everything Number two Seven Seven days of the week One dozen monkeys