Beautifully illustrated drawings and recorded lullabies from around the world sung in the language of origin - English, Spanish and French - make this storybook and CD combination a soothing bedtime story about an imaginary journey to unknown lands. Performers Sylva Balassanian, Mary Fujiwara Burke, Juan Jose Carranza, Hart-Rouge, Hsao, Paul Kunigis and Nathalie Picard share their culture in offering lovely, warm lead vocals and harmonies, supported by a highly skilled group of musicians playing more the 30 different instruments. The earth-toned, dreamlike illustrations reflect both the subject and country of origin of each song.

This storybook is part of a series designed to keep your little one engaged, calm, and learning before bedtime. It is meant to be read and viewed while listening to the accompanying CD, exposing your child to new sounds and cultures. The storybook features songs and messages from Mali, Europe, Australia, Japan, Tchad, Louisiana, Canada, Poland, South Africa, Italy, Costa Rica, Armenia, and Spain. Each page displays a picture version of the song's primary message, through slightly abstract images with many angles and beautiful contrasting glossy colors. Readers see people of varying color, age, and gender, as well as a flying pony, smiling fish, a frog jazz band, and whatever else an imagination can find. The abstract quality of the pictures certainly encourages imagination from readers. The pages are filled to the edges with color and shapes, providing plenty for your child to explore and interpret while listening to the song. The country of origin for each song is stated on each page, and the title is interpreted in three languages; English, Spanish, and French.

Hearing you pronounce the different languages, as well as hearing the language sung on the CD, is a wonderful introduction for your little one to cultures other than their own. They may inquire about the written languages that look so different from the one they are learning, or they may point to images on the page and wonder what they are. You can provoke your child to think more about each page by explaining what you can (the origin of the song and title) and interpreting the pictures as best you can, offering your own thoughts and asking about theirs. Listening to the music concurrently with reading is the best way to help your child understand the mood and meaning of each song.

My two-year-old friend Kyle listened to the CD alone first, but he seemed to engage more the second time when we included the storybook. He held the book while I held him in my lap, and we turned the pages together. He enjoyed pointing to different objects on each page, and I would tell him what it was - or what I thought it was. For the most abstract pictures, I found the mood of the music influenced the directions of my interpretation. The song Little Fishy, for example, has a slow tempo, so I interpreted the fish moseying along rather than swimming rapidly.

--Audra