An Engaging Array of Folk Songs for Little Folks

Audio

There’s a Pea on My Plate. Bill Harley. Round River/Alcazar Records. 46 minutes. CD: $15.98; audiocassette: $9.98. (800) 541-9904. You expect any new release from one of the nation’s top family entertainers, National Public Radio humorist Bill Harley, to be a good listen. This one is that and more. Harley passes on good advice (“Put Your Helmet On,” “Things Will Look Better in the Morning”) without being preachy, and he has fun with sheer nonsense (his new take on a New Orleans oldie: “Don’t You Just Know It”). But he’s at his best when he exercises his gift for getting inside the skin of a kid, as in “Moving Day” and “I Love My Sister.” The first is a child’s goodbye to all things familiar, and Harley gives it extra poignancy by having it sung by a child (Sara Miller). The latter captures the escalation of sibling warfare--and moments of alliance in the face of parental wrath--with hilarious accuracy.

Wishes & Dreams. Carla Sciaky. Alacazam! Records. 43 minutes. CD: $11.98; audiocassette: $9.98. (800) 541-9904. Carla Sciaky’s delicate, crystal-clear folk soprano is a lovely counterpoint to this quirky collection of songs written by elementary school children during Sciaky’s artist-in-residence stays in classrooms across the nation. And Sciaky’s expressive musical arrangements fit the songs’ eclectic subject matter perfectly: rainy days, found money, hot-day ice cream, friends, growing up, Halloween.

A couple of highlights: “Tesseract,” inspired by Madeleine L’Engle’s novel “A Wrinkle in Time,” and “Nighttime,” a song written by Navajo children and given a Celtic folk flavor by Sciaky. She includes her own musical cure for the blues, “Sing, Sing, Sing,” and an evocative arrangement of Eugene Field’s classic “Wynken, Blynken and Nod.”

The Camel With a Runny Nose. Roundstone Records and Music. 37 minutes. Audiocassette: $10. (310) 455-2243. Children’s folk singer/guitarist Courtney Campbell uses her clean soprano and gentle sense of humor to spark her engaging original songs for young children. They range from the title song, about a camel who’s not exactly clear on the nose-blowing concept, to lots of activity tunes, a little vowel instruction and some tongue-twisting tenses. The release winds up with a winsome tale about “The Boy Who Loved Band-Aids.”

New Neighbors. Greggy Dee. Childlike Entertainment. CD: $12.95; audiocassette: $8.95. (888) 244-5354. No, Greggy Dee doesn’t rap, despite the hip-hop sound of his moniker. This smooth singer’s vocals deliver a polished pop sound complemented by solid musical accompaniment and ear-pleasing arrangements. (Greggy Dee--a.k.a. Greg Dawson--wrote the music; Rosalind Memel wrote the lyrics.) Ballads are at times overly sweet, but upbeat songs are this singer’s strength and they’re terrific--especially the title track about neighbors from Mars, a doo-wop style lexicon of “Words,” a jazzy “The More You Grow, the More You Know” and a gastronomic tribute to one particular childhood phenomenon, “I Always Have Room for Dessert.”